A Fond Face from the Past

The story

A Fond Face from the Past is also set in a rural community, specifically a village outside Kameoka, near Kyoto. In some ways this short, thirty-six-minute film is Naruse's most moving negotiation of the militarist restrictions of the time, perhaps because it is also his most direct engagement with the culture of war. When a newsreel comes to Kameoka featuring a local man named Yoichi, it causes some excitement in the community and, of course, in Yoichi's own family. First of all his mother makes the newsreel (Nippon News, no. 14), which begins with the same marching music that opens his own film, followed by a curious baby judging context in Los Angeles featuring two hundred Japanese babies. Released in January 1941, almost a year before the pacific war begins, this “found footage” is indicative of Japanese imperialist ambitions beyond Asia long before Pearl Harbor.

Cast & crew

Ranko HanaiOsumi

Takashi Kodaka

Takashi KodakaCast

Tsuruko ManoCast

Kinji Fujiwa

Kinji FujiwaCast

Taizō FukamiSchoolteacher

Masaru Kodaka

Masaru KodakaShin-chan

Sumihiko Hara

Sumihiko HaraKen-chan

Makoto Matsuzaki

Makoto MatsuzakiMasa-chan

Fumio Okura

Fumio OkuraMasa-chan's father

Soji Watari

Soji WatariShige-san