Still from Carmen Comes Home (1951)
Keisuke Kinoshita (1912-1998) was one of Japan’s best loved & prolific post-war directors, and a master chameleon of both genre & style. Celebrated on par with contemporary Akira Kurasawa in his homeland, he is less well known in the west. From the 1940s through the 1960s, his combination of compassion & invention, humour & pathos, made him irresistible to Japanese audiences. This season of specially imported 35mm prints shines a light on one of the lesser known masters of Japanese cinema. Prints courtesy of the Japan Foundation. Screening Wednesdays from February 13 to 27 at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
7pm: Carmen Comes Home (Keisuke Kinoshita,1951)
Japan’s first colour film, Carmen Comes Home is a lighthearted comedy that engages all the same with Kinoshita’s concerns about individuals in post-war society. Partly a meditation on the jarring effects of Americanisation, partly a meditation on the rigid conservatism of small towns, it is entirely affectionate & resolutely nonjudgmental.
8:45pm: Twenty-four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1954)
A film of epic scope, spanning 30 years, Twenty-four Eyes is another powerful anti-war cry from Kinoshita. Beginning in the 1920s and proceeding through World War II, Twenty-four Eyes eloquently presents the traditional Japanese character as peacefully anathematic to the militarism of the 1930s & 1940s.
When: Wednesday the 20th of February
Where: Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Find out more and book tickets at the Melbourne Cinémathèque website.
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