Humanity and Paper Balloons

This film (drama)Also known as人情紙風船，is aJapanProducerwomen sex，At1937Released in year 。The dialogue language isJapanese，Current Douban rating8.4(For reference only)。

This film is the last work of Yoshio Yamashita and one of his representative pieces of "popular films in the period drama genre." In this film, he draws influences from American and French cinema, as well as from the aesthetics of "small popular cinema" championed by his close friend and mentor Yasujirō Ozu. He infuses the images of small historical figures from the Edo period with the language, character, behavior, and spirit of modern common people, creating a rare masterpiece of social realism. The story takes place during the Tokugawa shogunate in the eighteenth century, narrating the life of lower-class individuals with a melancholic tone. The film opens and closes with suicide scenes, reflecting the sorrow of the grassroots class in old Japanese society. Additionally, Yamashita's editing flows smoothly, and the visual style is sharp like Japanese painting, with the actors' performances appearing very natural. This film is acknowledged as Yamashita's best work and is one of the only three films he left behind. Humanity and Paper Balloons, unlike most other Japanese films of this period, is a historical film with a critical edge. Refusing to glorify samurai, the film instead deflates the myth around them with a gentle humanity. The film opens directly after a penurious ronin samurai has taken his own life. At his funeral, his neighbors from his slum mourn his death. Here, the film introduces another ronin samurai who lives in equal poverty. Having pawned his sword for food, the samurai searches for work but to no avail. The family's only income comes from the little balloon children's toys made by the wife. Out of desperation, the samurai abets in an attempted kidnapping. After finding out, the wife kills him in his sleep and then takes her own life, closing the film's narrative circle. Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide.