A Review of Twenty-four Eyes
taken from:
Kinoshita masterfully took his time in unveiling the pathos buried
within this exceptional work. Modern films almost never do that anymore...
Synopsis
Set in the late 1920's, in a story spanning close to three decades,
Twenty Four Eyes is a gentle heartfelt movie charting the lives of a
school teacher (the luminously beautiful Hideko Takamine) and her first twelve
students. Most of this film's characters are simple folks residing in a nondescript
fishing village along the Japanese coast. This film hence spins its sensitive
tale against the backdrop of historical markers before, during and after World
War II. It essays an affecting theme; the observance of Japanese traditions
against rising national tides of pro-right wing, war hungry ideologies. Via
its simple telling, we watch how the destinies of its respective protagonists
meet and deviate. We glimpse into moments of innocence lost and beauty ravaged.
We witness reality bites of loyalty compromised and idealism sullied. The harsh
tides of change just keep on pounding. The memory-tinged tears just keep on
flowing. 30 years of weariness, loss, pain and suffering, and one question arises:
Was it all worth it?
A Closer Look
At its beginning, during happier times, Twenty Four Eyes
was mostly filmed in mid to long distance shots. One thus found it hard to feel
for any one individual. But this was a purposeful stylistic decision, for it
helped to establish the idyllic tranquil of the movie's place and time. In this
universe, the folks led simple lives. Theirs was a close-knit community where
excitement would rise on the sightings of bicycle riding women (Hideko Takamine's
teacher character), where even such slightest of stir would rip through the
grapevine. This small coastal town was hence still untouched by urban influences
and most of its people were not yet calibrated by the country's industrialized
modernity. Sadly, most were not (would not be) ready to cope with its impending
social upheavals. Harking back to happier times, I love those sweet earlier
hours of school and lessons. For with broad simple strokes, Kinoshita managed
to paint a collective mood of contented joys and youthful idealism between the
teacher and her first twelve students. Via episodic presentation of their communal
activities, from light hearted classroom chats, to jovial sing-a-long field
trips, the bonds that bound these souls would help set in motion the melodramatic
wheels of this unstoppably tear jerking film. For by the film's mid point, Twenty
Four Eyes would kick up its dramatic gear. With an increasingly corresponded
framing of closer proximity shots, illuminated focus were shone back onto those
characters we once viewed from a distance. But the happy smiles so innocently
flashed earlier were slowly wiped from those familiar faces. Once we have crossed
the fulcrum of this story (when those students hit Form Six, and thereafter),
hints of troubles ahead started brewing. There were changes in the country's
indoctrinated campaign for militarism. There were incremental stifling of free
thoughts, in a land bent on instilling fears and subservience. There were sickness
and deaths amongst friends and families, some by the ravages of war, some not.
Children were put up for adoption and families uprooted due to poverty and destitution.
Students were giving up their studies for all sorts of reasons - family obligation,
blindsided patriotism or just plain helplessness. Young boys were shipped off
to war, full of misguided allegiance to country and glory. They bore false hopes
of returning victorious. How ironic then, that a generation of boys would die,
never to become grown men. That girls would blossom into womanhood, only to
discover a patriarchal society shackling their aspirations. That free-spirited
idealists (the teacher) would be pounded into submission by events beyond their
control. Those were all signs of the times. By the closing chapters of this
unbelievably melodramatic film, all the devices that could be used to wring
tears out of its audience (I shan't tell you what) had been exhausted. It's
indeed a marvel then, how Kinoshita accomplished it all with such earnest conviction.
In fact, to those people who are easily put off by "dated" melodramas, best
be warned; People cried a lot in this sweeping weepie. Strange enough, this
manic writer did not weep (as he's often prone to do). And so its confirmed;
his heart is rotten (or his tear ducts malfunctioned). But seriously, Twenty
Four Eyes is still a great film in my eyes. And I have absolutely no qualms
why it was named "the most tear jerking Japanese film of all time"; for unapologetically,
this film placed the lives of the Japanese people firmly in its heart (and mind).
Made and released in the early 50's, just years after the trauma of WWII, Twenty
Four Eyes must have seared the still raw psychological wounds of its intended
audience. Its subject matter and thematic content spoke to them: From children
of the lost generation to the parents who had lost these children. From people
who were once ravaged by poverty, sickness, war and loss, to people still imprisoned
by these compounded disenchantments. Viewed as a social document, Twenty
Four Eyes might thus have served as a balm to those still haunted by that
recent past. With grateful tears, the audiences shared in the collective journey
of this good-hearted movie. Assimilating with their own personal experiences,
this cathartic tale might have helped in mending the hearts of millions. It
might have gently coerced a kindred population of broken lives into finding
their respective closures. Or it might not. But I am willing to hazard a guess
anyway.
Another Review:
Twenty-Four Eyes (Nijushi No Hitomi) Review
155 minutes, Japan (1954)
In Keisuke Kinoshita's popular tearjerker, award-winning actress Hideko Takamine is a teacher who wins her pupils' hearts, if not minds, during a tumultuous period of Japanese history
1954 was a landmark year in the history of Japanese cinema, seeing in such classics as Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Mikio Naruse's Late Chrysanthemums and Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho The Bailiff and The Crucified Woman.
However, the release which would win that year's national critics' prize for best film (as well as the 1955 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film), was Kinoshita's Twenty-Four Eyes (Nijushi No Hitomi), the saga of a modern teacher's lasting relationship with her first 12 pupils (hence the title) during a period that encompassed the poverty of the Great Depression, and the disaster of the Second World War.
In 1928, the same year that universal suffrage was introduced to Japan, replacement teacher Hisako Oishi (Takamine) breezes into her new job at a village primary school on Shodo Island, where her bicycle-riding, her Western suit, and her informality in the classroom, all rouse the suspicions of colleagues and parents, while winning over her six-year-old pupils.
Injured in a prank gone wrong, Oishi transfers to a post in the Consolidated School, closer to her home. Five years later, now married and pregnant, Oishi finds herself teaching the same pupils again; but depressed by the rise of militarism and repression, and silenced by the schoolmaster from any discussion of politics, she quits teaching altogether. As Japan's Pacific War broadens, Oishi keeps up with the tragedies of her former pupils, and suffers many of her own, before finally, after Japan's surrender, she returns to teaching and is invited to a reunion in her honour by the survivors from her old class.
Adapted from Sakae Tsuboi's 1952 novel, Twenty-Four Eyes arrived at a time when Japan was still reeling from its wartime suffering and shame, yet already beginning the process of renewal. The film brilliantly captures this prevailing mood of sorrow for the past, and hope for the future. Little wonder, then, that it should have won the hearts of its contemporary Japanese viewership. Perhaps much more surprising is that a film so much of its time, and so unfashionably sentimental by today's standards, should still be included as late as 1999 in a list of top 10 favourites compiled by Japanese critics.
When Oishi returns to teaching after the war, her readiness to weep earns her the new nickname 'Miss Crybaby', and there will be many who feel that by this point the film might similarly have been re-dubbed 'Twenty-Four Tear Ducts'. Its second half seems to be entirely devoted to scenes in which Oishi and her pupils meet and weep together, no doubt offering a cathartic outlet for Kinoshita's immediate post-war audience, well attuned to grief and woe, but excessive in its maudlin melodrama for viewers from later times.
Oishi is a humanist and a pacifist. In her first year as a teacher she confines a portrait of the Emperor to the classroom cupboard, and later she attempts to discourage the boys in her class from enlisting; but after another teacher is arrested for publishing an anti-war pamphlet, and Oishi is warned to desist from any further discussion of politics, her tears become the only permissible expression of protest left to her. The near continuous torrents that follow render all the more remarkable Oishi's outright refusal to cry at the news of Japan's 1945 surrender. As a political response, this sob-free silence is deafening, and registers, however passively, the (necessarily) quiet opposition of so many ordinary Japanese to their nation's belligerence.
The passage of time in Twenty-Four Eyes is occasionally punctuated by a recurring text that reads: "The colour of the sea and the shape of the mountains stayed the same, but tomorrow became today."
In keeping with this lyrical reflection on change and stasis, the film presents a dynamic contrast between the irrevocable momentum of events and their consequences, and the rhythmic cycles of life. In her first year on Shodo, Oishi witnesses the devastating force of the island's winds, only to be told that Septembers are "always like this".
Set against this world where destruction and recovery endlessly repeat themselves according to seasonal patterns, the ravages of the Depression and the Second World War are seen as cataclysmic storms which, for all their power to ruin lives forever, must inevitably give way to a period of calmer waters, until the whole process starts up again.
Accordingly the film ends, 18 years after it began, with Oishi right back where she started, once again cycling to her new job as teacher, and facing the hopes and promises of a new generation, while herself so transformed by circumstance, memory and experience that she has lost the optimism and joy of her own youth. And so this harrowing tearjerker of a film ends on an aptly bittersweet note.