Twenty-Four Eyes

For English speaking people, there are not many movies available on DVD starring Hideko Takamine. This is one, and it is a masterpiece. Ms. Takamine plays a schoolteacher in a small Inland Sea village in Japan. The movie's time line is twenty years, from 1928 to 1948. These turbulent times affect the students she teaches, some of whom went off to war. There are many tears in this film, from the children and Takamine's character. The fact that "Auld Lang Syne" is used at times for background music heightens the feelings of loss & sadness, which does make up some of the story. This is somewhat of an anti-war film, but only as it affects the children and the teacher. Ms. Takamine is luminous in this role, as she is in every movie I've ever seen her in. The fact that the director Kinoshita Keisuke also directed her in "Carmen Comes Home" (the first ever Japanese film in color), a film light years away from this one, shows off their versatility in their craft. The only complaint I have is small, that the subtitles are somewhat annoying, since they are sometimes out of sync. However, a great movie is a great movie. This film won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. It is a richly deserved honor.

People who view this film would do well to consider the sentiment of post-war Japan in the mid-50s, when the future was still uncertain and the vast devastation and shame caused by the war were prevalent in the mindset of its citizens.

The timing for this film's release was significant, because perhaps for the first time, it permitted the people of Japan to cry unabashedly for themselves, far removed from any political statement so frequent in Shochiku films such as with many of Kurosawa's classics. Movies at the time tended to have positive, uplifting themes that motivated the populous to help rebuild the country into a modern democratic nation. You can thank Douglas MacArthur for that.

The post-war generation was now almost 10 years old, and in the Japanese psyche was the need for justification for its darkest period in history.

This film served as a reminder of the horrors of war, not from the battlefields, but from the emotional scars left on its children who lived and died during it.

Hideko Takamine brilliantly played the role of a school teacher on a typical remote island community in south Japan during an increasingly militarist government. As was customary at the time, the same teacher saw to their students' education from primary to high school, forming a lifetime bond.

Director Keisuke Kinoshita's camera work is nothing less than genius, beautifully portraying the transitions of seasons from year to year. The water, sand, and dust textures are so distinct that you almost forget that it was filmed in black and white.

The character closeups are never exaggerated and the 12 children actors (hence "24 Eyes") do an outstanding job portraying how they end up sacrificing their childhood dreams due to poverty and for national duty.

Of symbolic note is the appearance of the Island bus, which is seen at first with Japanese kanji characters painted on the side. Later in the film, it's written in English as "Shima Bus", signifying how modernization has reached the island after the war.

From cast, location and cinematography, Nijushi no Hitomi is a masterpiece of emotional storytelling.

"Years might go by, but the mountain colour never change."

This movie is an excellent work of art by Keisuke Kinoshita.

It starts off with a new teacher being assigned to teach the first grade in a poor village. She is initially rejected from the community, and is gossiped about constantly. However the students she teaches fall in love with her style. One of her tasks is to teach the children to sing. However, instead of teaching school songs or patriotic songs, she teaches them folk songs. Misfortune strikes and she is forced to leave the school, but not before she makes a lasting impression on the children. They will see her again, as a teacher, but not for another five years.

From these humble beginnings a rich story about the poor in Japan before, during, and after World War 2 is shown. We get to know all twelve children ("24 eyes") in the movie, and eventually learn about their fates as adults. We see the equivalent of the "Red Scare" in Japan, and the saddening events caused by World War 2. Although overdramatic, the feelings still feel genuine and even the hardest of people will not be able to resist shedding a tear or two over the fates of the children you grow to love.

I can only ask you to watch the full 3 hours. That is the only way one can truly appreciate the beauty of this film. There is nothing else to be said.

It was a pleasure for me to see this lovely movie, a film I've really wished to see in the last four years but I couldn't do it until today. I heard about this movie when I lived in Japan and visited Shodoshima island, where "Eiga Mura" (Cinema Village), the place this film was made, can still be visited and the atmosphere of the past can be enjoyed. To be honest, I must say that "Nijushi no hitomi" wasn't for me the "exceptional film" I expected to see, but anyway it has been a pleasant experience. The life of the rural teacher, from the start of her career (in the mid 20's) to the time she retakes her teaching position after having become a widow (in the 40's, after the end of WWII), is an interesting guide to discover the traditional life and mentalities in the small islands of Seto (Japan Inland Sea). A good point for this film: it is usually said that this is an "anti-war" film. Well, it is true that the teacher shows a clear position against the wars Japan was involved (the war against China and the later Pacific War against the USA), but this film mustn't be considered as a pacifist pamphlet: the honest position of the teacher against the war is just one more detail in this complete description of how life should be in rural Japan during those difficult prewar, war and postwar years. A film that should be shown in every school around the world.

Compared to a film like "Pigs And Battleships", or even "I Live In Fear"; Kinoshita's film is a middlebrow, mainstream, even sentimental take on the Japan's war years and it's aftermath.

Still, the film is graceful and touching, with what Pauline Kael called "concealed art." Kinoshita's approach seems to be to take potently maudlin situations, and film them from an objective distance; with as direct and simple emotion as possible.

This may short change the great Takamine a bit; we seem to be an hour into the film before the great actress receives a close up. Still, her performaces gains power as the film goes on.

Though politics are kept in the background, as perhaps they had to in a Japanese film of this nature; but there is an anger lurking in the backgroud; an inditement of a culture that would waste the strength of it's woman and worse; reduce it's men to cannon fodder. Was it something in Japanese life; rather than just it's military, that led to it's disasters? Even the country's great filmmakers seem hesitant to speculate. In any event, another strong film of interest to all those who have fallen under the spell of great Japanese film.