1951 film

1958 film by Shōhei Imamura

A rambunctious and ribald tale of a troupe of travelling actors who alternate highlights of kabuki theatre with strip shows.

1956 film by Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasuzō Masumura

1959 film by Alain Resnais

Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well-choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers; it was the first entry in the Hulot series and the film that launched its maker to international stardom.

1952 Italian film by Vittorio De Sica

Film director Blasetti is looking for a little girl for his new movie. Along with other mothers, Maddelena takes her daughter to Cinecittà, hoping she’ll be selected and become a star. She is ready to sacrifice anything for little Maria.

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

A suicidal alcoholic’s last day teems with images of anxiety and Kafkaesque paranoia. Adapted from Marek Hlasko’s novel ‘The First Step in the Clouds’, Has’ feature debut is cinematic delirium tremens, as young man Kuba Kowalski escapes his cramped flat to wander from bar to bar, unable to escape the trap of isolation. The metaphorical noose tightens as Kuba, nearly saved by the love of a good woman, dives deeper into hallucinatory intoxication.

1954 film by Keisuke Kinoshita

1954 film by Roberto Rossellini

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.

The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet and rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.

1958 film by Mikio Naruse

1952 film by Kenji Mizoguchi

As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.

In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.

1952 film directed by Roberto Rossellini

A coming-of-age story portrayed as the loss of all youthful illusions. Sixteen-year-old Yoichi dreams of becoming a sailor. His parents are fishmongers, and Yoichi lives together with them and his four siblings in cramped living conditions. His beloved younger sister is given to a wealthy, childless uncle; his best friend moves away; the girl he fell in love with from afar is with someone else: little by little, Yoichi loses all the people that are important to him. His counterpart is his older sister, who defends her own interests regardless of the consequences. Her determination to better herself, her willingness to do anything to escape poverty, is emblematic of Japanese post-war society. Yoichi, on the other hand, has only the binoculars left to him by an uncle to help him dream about another world, far away from his family. The film’s melancholy tone depicts Yoichi’s fate as inescapable: “Man’s happiness or sadness is fixed before birth”, he declares at some point. By the end, the conflict between obligation and fulfilling your dreams has given way to quiet resignation. 秋本洋一の家は、ある下町の隅で魚屋をやっており、父源吉、母お新、姉豊子、妹和枝等の弟妹と七人家族で細々と暮していた。洋一は魚屋が嫌いで船乗りに憧れ叔父から貰った双眼鏡を手に毎日二階から遠くを眺めていた。姉の豊子は貧乏が嫌いで、恋人の須藤と結婚の約束をしていたが、彼の父が事業に失敗したと聞くと彼から離れた。次いで豊子は新たに、金持の五十男との話を家族の反対をよそに一人で進めていた。こうした時、源吉は心臓病で倒れた。洋一は父と母の言葉に、魚屋になる決心をした。こうした洋一を慰めてくれるのは、双眼鏡に写る少女の姿であった。ある日、洋一と友人の原田は双眼鏡の少女の家を探し当てたが、その少女は、いたいたしい病身の身で嫁いで行くところだった。洋一の姉豊子は、勤務先の課長に親代りになってもらい、五十男の後妻になったが、別れた筈の須藤と箱根で遊んだりする無軌道ぶりを示していた。こうした彼女を探す夫の電話に、病をおして出た父源吉は、くずれるように倒れた。源吉の死後、妹の和枝は大阪の叔父幸造に引き取られていった。原田の母喜代からは、親友の一家が北海道に転任することを知らされ、若い洋一の上には、次から次へと厳しい現実の波が打ち寄せてきた。それから四年、洋一は茨の道を雄々しく切り開き、今は小ぎれいな店で母と共に、あざやかな手つきで刺身を切っていた。夕やけ雲の下、細々と立つ夕げの煙を前に崖に立つ洋一は、“さようなら、俺の愛していたみんな、遠メガネの女も、妹も、友達も、船乗りに憧れた青春の夢も”と呟いた。