MovieChat Forums > Tonari no Yae-chan (1934) Discussion > 2005 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL SIDEBAR - S...

2005 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL SIDEBAR - Special Retrospective


The Film Society of Lincoln Center Presents

A Special Retrospective of The 43rd New York Film Festival

The Beauty of the Everyday:
Japan’s Shochiku Company at 110
September 24 – October 20, 2005

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts,
which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

This year’s New York Film Festival Retrospective— The Beauty of the Everyday: Japan’s Shochiku Company at 110— is virtually a pocket history of Japanese cinema. While some fifteen of the forty-five films in the retrospective are devoted to Japanese filmmaker masters, such as Ozu, Naruse, and Mizoguchi, more than two dozen of the films are by directors far less well-known in the West.

Our Neighbor Miss Yae / Tonari no Yae-chan
Yasujiro Shimazu, 1934; 76m
As a studio, Shochiku quickly became identified with the shomin-geki, the tale of contemporary or everyday life; Yasujiro Shimazu has long been considered one of the principal architects of the studio’s “house style” in that genre, yet his work remains largely unknown outside Japan. A young, high-school-aged boy from a middle- class family develops a crush on his pretty next-door neighbor; happily, she seems just as interested in him, and soon a romance seems to be blossoming. But the girl has an older sister who’s unhappily married and who spends a lot of time at her parents’ home; she also takes notice of the handsome boy next door. Our Neighbor Miss Yae is one of Shimazu’s very finest films; the ease of the storytelling and naturalness of the acting are all the more remarkable because of the emotionally complex subject matter. In one amazing scene, two teenage girls discuss their bodies with a frankness that would have been unthinkable in Hollywood or just about anywhere else in 1934.

Screenings:
Sept. 26, 2005 - 4:30pm
Sept. 27, 2005 - 2:30pm
Sept. 28, 2005 - 6:00pm

reply