Final Blossay: Nagisa Oshima's "A Town of Love and Hope"

"A Town of Love and Hope" (愛と希望の町)

"Ai to kibô no machi"

Released: Novermber 17, 1959 (Japan)

Running time: 62 minutes

Aspect ratio: 2.35:1

The opening scene where the main character, Masao, sells his pet pigeons to a high school girl trying to help him, Kyoko

Directed by Nagisa Oshima

Analyzed by Alexandra Hemp

"A Town of Love and Hope" (also known as "A Street of Love and Hope") henceforth referred to as TLH, was Nagisa Oshima's very first film. Produced in 1959, it would be over 10 years later that he would produce "Death by Hanging" as viewed and analyzed in class. Both "Death by Hanging" as well as TLH show a similar Brechtian approach in exposing social injustices, specifically the hardships of the poor and those in difficult positions in the latter film.

**This review and analysis contains spoilers**

Cast:

Masao (Main Character) - Hiroshi Fujikawa

Yasue (Younger Sister) - Michio Ito

Kuniko (Mother) - Yûko Mochizuki

Miss Akiyama (Teacher) - Kakuko Chino

Kyoko (High School Girl) - Yuki Tominaga

(Kyoko’s Brother) - Fumio Watanabe

(Kyoko’s Father) - Fujio Suga

Synopsis:

SLH began with the main character, a middle school boy named Masao, selling pigeons on the street to make money for food. He sells his two pet homing pigeons to a wealthy young high school girl, Kyoko, who pities him and insists on giving him the full price, 1,000 yen versus 800. After refusing the extra money, he returns home after buying dinner for his mother and sister, Yasue. His poor family lives in a single room apartment with only one mattress in the slums nearby some factories. The sickly mother works tirelessly every day to support Masao’s middle school education, hoping that one day he will be able to get into high school in order to get a respectable job and help the family out of the poverty they live through every day. The younger sister, Yasue, is described to be on the dull side, which one can assume means she is mentally handicapped. She has an attachment to the two pet pigeons Masao sells, and draws them frequently for fun, also noted that drawing was her only talent.

The strategy in this pigeon selling process is that, once the pigeons escape or are let out of their cages, they return back to their home with the poor family, and they can then sell them again for the same price to a different person. By the time Masao has sold the pigeons to Kyoko, it has been the fourth time they have repeated the process. We are later introduced to Masao’s school teacher, a woman named Miss Akiyama, who cares deeply for Masao and is aware of his difficult life. Masao returns the money Miss Akiyama had lent to him to buy school books and she walks him home, stopping in to briefly speak with his mother about her plans for him to attend High school. Masao expresses that he would rather find work and help his sick mother support the family instead of wasting time in school any longer.

The next day, he meets up with Kyoko again. Kyoko thanks Masao again for the pigeons, but is guilty that her brother did not want them. She had bought them as a gift, but he showed no interest and so she offered to return them free of charge. She also offered to give him the gift money she had to spend on her brother, stating that at least in his hands it would be spent on something that would be appreciated. Masao again turns down her kindness. At this time, Akiyama sensei shows up and invites Kyoko to lunch with her. While talking, the subject of Masao’s desire to work comes up. Insistent on helping Masao, Kyoko explains that her father is an executive at a company that can probably get him a job. The two set off to discuss the job opportunities for urban school kids at Kyoko’s father’s factory.

Upon meeting the representatives Kyoko’s father sends, they agree to develop a pilot program to integrate a few students into the factory should they pass the job test and background tests. Akiyama sensei meets with Kyoko’s brother, and the two begin dating. Ove the course of time, Kyoko visits Masao’s home and begins to want to help him more and more, trying to get her family to give him job opportunities. Around this time, Masao’s mother collapses and is unable to work.

After being kicked off the street for shoe shining without a proper permit, Masao takes the job test. While he thinks he has done well, he does not get the job. Upon hearing this, Kyoko and Akiyama are outraged. Akiyama brings it up on one of her dates with Kyoko’s brother, and is appalled to find out that after a background check it was discovered that Masao had been selling and re-selling the pigeons once they came back. Because of his dishonesty, he was not eligible for the job. The two exchange a conversation later on, discussing what it means to get by on a world where you are too poor to buy dinner. While the brother says he would forgive Akiyama for re-selling pigeons, he didn’t do the same for Masao. Deciding that it would be too difficult to bridge the gap between them financially and morally, the two decide to break things off.

The film leaves off with Kyoko and her brother standing on their balcony overlooking the town with the factories in the distance. Kyoko asks her brother if he would kill the pigeon. He agrees, and takes aim. Kyoko hesitates, then releases the pigeon. As it tries to fly home, her brother kills it and the film ends.

Analysis, History, & Meanings

“A Town of Love and Hope” is a film about the social relationship between the rich and privileged versus the poor and unfortunate in Japanese society. Oshima uses the prime example of a Japanese family left stranded in the inadequate system—a single, sickly mother with two children, one of which goes to school to get a shot at a better life, the other who has no real chance at a normal life and is forced to grow up in sub-standard living conditions. To further this theme of being trapped in the system, nothing discussed in this film ever strays from the core topic of money and class differences. The title in itself is ironic, as the film offers little to no hope of overcoming a flawed system, and the love in the film is shallow or scarce.

Within the first five minutes of the film, Oshima makes it clear the horrible conditions that Masao's family suffers through. The mother, being sick, needs the care of a doctor. Her situation is increasingly difficult as the welfare she receives is inadequate to support them as it is, yet the family will no longer receive it after Masao graduates middle school and enters high school.

"It's alright. I'm not that sick."

"Well, welfare money isn't enough to live on. If you're sick, it'd only be natural to receive medical aid. But they have a fixed amount for the overall budget. As a social worker at the lowest end, I have no power to do anything."

"I'll get back to work soon."

"Don't push yourself too hard."

"I gotta push myself. He'll be in high school next year and we'll lose our welfare relief. I can't just sit around."

Masao's mother discusses her health and work situation with a visiting doctor, making it clear the system fails to adequately support her family, especially when in times of  exceptional need.

In typical Oshima fashion, he used various examples of symbolism throughout the film. The usage of pigeons in the film is exceedingly interesting. It is a physical embodiment of the pathway between the rich and the poor. The pigeons can represent the family’s struggle for survival—when they sell the birds, they have money; by the time the birds return to them, they already need to sell them once more in order to survive. However, the theme is clear: every single time, the birds return to the poverty. The pigeon is a symbol of the family as it bounces between the houses of the rich and its ‘rightful’ place in the slums, just as the family bounces from having the money to eat and buy drawing supplies for the sister and school supplies for the brother, to having absolutely nothing and being forced to sell the pet birds again. It is also useful to note the ending, when Kyoko’s brother shoots the pigeon, thus ending the cycle. However, it only freezes the position of Masao’s family—now they will remain poor, unable to sell the pigeons again to return to having money.

This symbolic killing of the pigeon represents not only the family’s immediate financial status, but their status for the future as well. The bird, a symbol of flight and the ability to escape, was destroyed alongside Masao’s ability to escape poverty. His record is forever tarnished due to the re-selling on the pigeons which will prevent him from getting hired, regardless of the effort he puts into getting educated. It goes on to say that no matter what poor families do, they will always be unable to escape their situation due to inadequacies in the system. The system that does not efficiently support them, forcing them to turn to a life that is “…socially unacceptable, but necessary to survive” as Miss Akiyama puts it.

This brings up a theme that Oshima seems to focus on in both TLH and “Death by Hanging”—life trapped in an endless circle, and the paradoxes that the system creates. The struggle against poverty and R’s observation while on death row that “if killing is wrong, then killing him is also wrong” are both examples of the system failing, and thus falling into an endless loop of circumstances that prevent it from moving forward. The welfare that Masao’s family should help them survive, and if that were the case then it would be easier for them to escape poverty and find a better life. This obviously does not work though as we see in the film when the family lives from meal to meal, hoping that the pigeons come back home. They have no chance of saving money at all, and the meager funds that do trickle in are barely enough to allow Masao to get an education. The family is cornered into turning to crime in order to survive, which in turn causes Masao to lose out on his job after marring his record, resulting in the family being forced back to where they began with even less than they had before. Oshima shows through TLH how poverty perpetuated by an inadequate system causes destructive behavior, including crime, resulting in the destruction of someone’s record and, in turn, their chances at getting a job and escaping their situation.

More symbolism is shown when Kyoko gets into a fight with the neighborhood boys in the slums as she is walking home with Masao. She engages with the hoodlums and ends up getting shoved into a mud puddle, staining her perfectly white dress. This is an example of how the wealthy are ‘dirtied’ by associating with the poor, as her brother comments on it after wards saying “I don’t want you exposed to the misery and ugliness in the world.” The scene also serves to display Kyoko’s ignorance towards Masao’s life, struggles and hardships. After they escape from the fight and find a place to hide, Kyoko begins to laugh as if this was the most fun she’d had in her life—it was her first fistfight she’d been in; she treated it as a joke or form of entertainment. Little does she know, this was not some sort of novelty experience for Masao, it was a daily part of life. Being shoved and beaten in the mud was a normal and unpleasant experience for him, yet Kyoko was charmed by the ‘exotic’ and unfamiliar experience. While her dress is filthy, it is only a dress. All she has to do as a wealthy class citizen is toss it to her housekeeper and have it washed and it will be good as new. Masao on the other hand has no such way out, and is forced to live his life this way for good.

Kyoko, returning home from the fight in the slums, delighted to share her "adventure" with her family.

This brings up another theme that Oshima puts into play, regarding the rift that stands between the rich and poor, and the ignorance that surfaces when, even with the best intentions, the gap is attempted to be bridged. While Kyoko’s goals for Masao and his family are pure, she has no idea what his life is like and just what he is trying to escape. The same can be said for her father and brother. The father, who doesn’t originally hire urban youths has no grasp of the sufferings of the lower class or why he should help them. The brother, who attempts to court Miss Akiyama, finds it difficult to see eye to eye with her as she is someone of lower social status who has a better idea of the hard lives of those in poverty.

Within the first five minutes of watching this film, I also noticed that Masao had a certain air about him similar to that of R in "Death by Hanging" (DBH), also by Oshima. He depicts someone who is "guilty", yet has strong feelings that he isn't so. He also carried himself in a similar manner--indifferent, relaxed, and calm. Masao's demeanor reminded of the scene where R acts out being kind to his siblings, pretending to take them to the zoo despite being too poor to do so. This is the biggest parallel between DBH and TLH—both use Brechtian techniques to expose the plights of the unfortunate, allowing the viewers to be exposed to the main characters suffering while less emotionally invested in their development. We are never led to truly sympathize with Masao as he never says anything about his situation, and often comes off as completely apathetic and uncaring towards life in general. He is only a machine functioning in his situation, acting as a vessel to convey a deeper message by those around him who are more passionate. The same can be said for DBH, where R's role is only to be there to facilitate the actions and conversations around him, speaking only when necessary. There are also only two instances focusing on crying in the film, and both are by the mother. However, like R, Masao shows no emotion even as his mother cries in his arms.

This Brechtian theme can be noted in the directness of the dialogue, as many have been included in this post to emphasize that. They are very direct, and the characters and their representations are openly attacked and questioned. For instance, Kyoko's brother was trying to explain to Miss Akiyama why he couldn't allow urban youths to apply for jobs at the factory, stating that "Broken families often produce twisted human beings," to defend his claims that they could be bad for the company. It begs the question: who made them this way? Why are they unable to be offered a chance simply by someone looking at their circumstances? How can they expect to escape said circumstances when their means for escape are closed doors to them? Miss Akiyama emphasizes this point, saying "You turned a blind eye to this injustice and allowed him to be unhappy," when again, the brother fails to understand the situation. Finally, to put a cherry on the ignorance sundae Oshima has made out of the wealthy, Kyoko delivers the line "It's too cruel to sell the pigeons—it’s inhuman," at the end of the film. This is a direct message that the poor are forced to conduct themselves in an inhuman way. Why? Because of a system that dehumanizes them, pressuring them to do the unacceptable to survive.

Cinematography & Scene Analysis

Oshima uses predominantly medium and long shots that create the feeling of the viewer watching the goings on from the far corner of the room, or through a doorway or window. This adds to the feeling of distance that Brechtian films typically evoke.

He uses a variety of shots to emphasize the differences between classes, using only a single shot to show the entirety of Masao's home as opposed to multiple medium and even tracking shots to display the size of the home. Tracking shots and long shots are also used outside of Masao's home to create distance between the viewer and the characters as well as highlight the open space and emptiness in contrast to the cramped slums and Masao's tiny home.

The entirety of Masao's home, encompassed in a single long shot. Even characters seen in the far end of the shot at the back of the room are at a personal distance.

A single hallway in Kyoko's home shown with a long shot. Masao waits at the farthest end of the hallway as the housekeeper emerges from a side room, referring to Kyoko as "the miss".

Close ups were reserved for the scattered emotional parts of the film, such as Masao's mother crying, and the breakup between Miss Akiyama and Kyoko's brother. They were also used in the end of the film when Kyoko releases the pigeon for her brother to shoot. The camera zeroed in on their facial expressions in all these cases for viewers to be able to see the subtle expressions they had on, as to add to the lesser emotions shown in Brechtian films.

The scene I wanted to take a closer look at was the breakup between Miss Akiyama and Kyoko's older brother. The scene begins with a medium shot of Miss Akiyama explaining that she wanted to break things off. The angle of the camera suggests that the viewer is another patron of the restaurant almost eavesdropping on the conversation unfolding.

"Are you saying we're through?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Kyoko's brother and Miss Akiyama's date hits a snag right off the bat.

She proceeds to explain the gap between the essential details of their lives, focusing on how well she understands the plights of the unfortunate as opposed to the misunderstanding and ignorance the brother carelessly displays. Since she has gone through much more hardship than him and seen more of the child's life, she understands the situation more thoroughly than him and is more willing to help in a more effective way.

“I went to the kid's house later last night. I wanted to reprimand him for selling the pigeon. But I couldn’t. I felt he had no other choice. I’ve been watching the lives of those kids all along.”

Kyoko tries to explain the situation to the brother in a relatable way.

"Sell your pigeons?"

“Yes. Or do something similar. Something socially unacceptable, but necessary to survive. You don’t forgive such an act.”

She explains how she understands the kids, and the link she has to them. She too has experienced some of the hardships that they have. Oshima highlights in this scene the reasons why the rich simply cannot understand the poor properly--they have no concept of what it means to struggle, while someone who has also lived a hard life has an easier time relating to someone like that and so has the ability to help properly. She also points out that living a difficult life forces people into a corner, driving them to do things that are not allowed or accepted in order to survive. She tries to explain this to him by putting herself in Masao's shoes and asking how Kyoko's brother would react. 

She then goes on to bring up the brother's actions in response to finding out what Masao did in order to survive, pointing out that he did not pity him for simply finding a way to avoid starving to death with his family. She points out the gap in that he did not forgive Masao for doing what it takes to survive, and if she were forced to do the same types of things he would also not forgive her. He tries to defend himself.

"I do forgive."

The brother's shallow understanding of the situation surfaces, though he thinks he has a grasp on it.

“But you didn’t forgive a boy who sold his pigeons.”

“That’s because—”

“Don’t. I know how you feel. But listen. Your position forced you. Your position will keep forcing you.”

“I thought we could…”

Miss Akiyama relentlessly fires back at Kyoko's brother, explaining that he simply doesn't understand. She acknowledges the fact that his social status differs from her own, and while she would want to give him a job, he cannot because he must think about the safety of his business first. In this exchange, Oshima displays the ignorance of the wealthy when trying to relate to the poor. The brother's arguments and reasoning  are childish, saying it would be different if it were her who had sold the pigeons. This is also because he has a better grasp of her life since she is more well off than Masao--he can relate to her more than he can Masao due to their respective social statuses. 

“I’ve wanted to tell you—”

“Please don’t. I’ve enjoyed our last two months. I forgot about my position and I was happy. It’s all thanks to you. I even entertained a bigger dream. I may never have another chance at happiness like this. But it had a price.”

Miss Akiyama explains how her personal feelings regarding his actions are affecting their relationship.

“I have to go back to my place as a school teacher. Because there’s a huge gulf between the two of us. Do you think you can bridge the gap?”

Kyoko's brother releases Miss Akiyama's hands, giving up on their impossible relationship.

Upon hearing Miss Akiyama's question, he is taken back. He realizes the depth of her statements in this moment, and he comes to understand just what she is trying to see. Now aware of the impossible nature of their relationship, he consigns to the fact that he cannot ever relate to her due to his personal status and the gap between them that he cannot bridge. He removes his hands from hers, and the breakup is sealed. He lets go of her, knowing full well that their differences are too great to be overcome. 

Final Remarks

The film concludes with the ties between the wealthy and poor being severed, despite their best attempts and honest intentions. While there was great effort to remedy the situations, it ended with the acknowledgement that the two classes were just too different to understand each other. Oshima points out in this film that in order to fix a problem, one must understand the problem. Good intentions simply cannot do the trick. The same goes for the flawed system at work in this film--the rich are the ones who can help the poor, but as they either cannot clearly see the problem or do not understand its roots, they are unable to help in any way. Things can only be fixed by those who truly understand the situation, and the situation must be fixed; otherwise the cycle continues on and on, just like the pigeon would keep returning home if Kyoko never killed it.

Kyoko and her brother stand on the balcony of their home, which overlooks the entire city. In the far distance, the slums where Masao lives can barely be seen, illustrating the  overwhelming gap between the two that cannot be bridged.