Ito Daisuke's "Jirokichi the Ratkid"
Yamanaka Sadao's "Humanity and Paper Balloons"
Presented by Christine Marran

Thursday, February 15, 2007
7pm in Nicholson Hall 155, University of Minnesota

Jirokichi the Ratkid
Directed by Ito Daisuke
Japan, 70 minutes
The film is an unusual silent Japanese swordfight film depicted in a modernist style, in high contrast lighting that evokes German expressionism. Ito Daisuke, along with Yamanaka Sadao, is one of Japan's founding directors.

Humanity and Paper Balloons
Directed by Yamanaka Sadao
Japan, 87 minutes
Widely regarded as Yamanaka's greatest achievement, Humanity and Paper Balloons was, tragically, his last film, and only one of three that survive today. This beautiful, sobering film captures the courage of its characters in facing a miserable existence. The story develops in the Tokugawa era of the 18th century, in a poor district of Tokyo , where impoverished samurai live from hand to mouth among equally poor people of lower social classes. One such ronin (masterless samurai) Matajuro, spends his day looking for work whilst his wife, Otaki, makes cheap paper balloons at home. Its cinematic beauty during one of Japan's golden decades of filmmaking is exceptional.