Humanity and Paper Balloons
About Humanity and Paper Balloons
In an Edo slum, the ronin Matajuro Unno carries a letter from his dead father to the lord Mouri, who will not read it. Unno's wife supports them by making paper balloons. The hairdresser Shinza, run out of a gambling den by Yatagoro's men, kidnaps Okoma, the pawnbroker's daughter, on the night she is promised to another man. Unno hides her in his room until a ransom is paid, and the neighbors decide a samurai had no business in it. He comes home drunk with the letter still in his pocket. His wife kills him with a short sword and then kills herself. The next morning a boy runs to tell the landlord and drops a paper balloon into the gutter.
Cast & crew
More about Humanity and Paper Balloons
Sadao Yamanaka directed. Shintaro Mimura wrote it. Akira Mimura photographed it. P.C.L. and the Zenshin-za troupe made it. Toho released it in Japan on 25 August 1937. It runs 86 minutes. The Japanese title is 人情紙風船. It was Yamanaka's last film.
Themes
Background
The story is set in the 18th-century Edo period, under the Tokugawa shogunate, in a rented row where suicides are common enough that the neighbors do not stop for this one.
Making
Yamanaka shot the tenement with the Zenshin-za company. The balloons the wife makes are the last image, floating in the drain.
Reviews
In a 2009 poll of critics, Kinema Junpo ranked the film tied for 23rd among Japanese films.
Look
Akira Mimura photographed the tenement, the bridge where Yatagoro calls Shinza out, and the gutter at the end.
Preservation
One of the three Yamanaka films that survive. A subtitled print was released in the United States in August 1982.
Notes
- Chojiro Kawarazaki plays Unno. Kan'emon Nakamura plays Shinza.
- Okoma is to marry a rich samurai's son. The clerk Chushichi is the man she wants.
- Shinza tells Yatagoro to shave his head and apologize. The landlord then sells the release for a larger sum.
- Only three of Yamanaka's films survive. A subtitled American release followed in August 1982.
- Kinema Junpo's 2009 critics' poll placed it tied for 23rd among Japanese films.
Scenes
- Unno follows Mouri and is turned away at the gate.
- Shinza hides Okoma in the ronin's room.
- The wife finds the unopened letter after he passes out.
- A boy drops a paper balloon into the running gutter.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937) by Sadao Yamanaka.webm)