- 丹下左膳余話 百萬両の壺 (Sanze Tangen and the Million-Ryo Pot)
11/1/20 (Sun), Tokyo
The Tokyo International Film Festival is featuring a special section on director Yamanaka Sadao, a prolific film director from the 1930s who tragically died at age 28. He made over two dozen films in a brief period at a pace of 4-5 per year, but only three survive, all of which are highly regarded. That makes it easy to do a retrospective of his career, and all three have been digitally cleaned up for the occasion. That includes one of my all-time favorite Japanese films, Humanity and Paper Balloons. Today was the oldest of the surviving films, dating from 1935, when sound was just taking hold in Japan. The theater is not practicing social distancing, so we’re back to crowded seats (the theater was around 60% full even for an old flick readily available on YouTube). I guess I should be careful what I wish for, especially since everyone was concentrated in the center. Still, it was good to be in a packed house again.
sekenbanashi 