Viewed on Streaming. Sound-stage exterior sets = eight (8) stars; cinematography = four (4) stars; subtitles = three (3) stars. Director Sadao Yamanaka presents period mini dramas about "typical" life in a small village on the cusp of being absorbed into Edo (Edo exurbia?). Everyone directly/indirectly knows everyone else's business because everyone is part of everyone else's business. (Privacy is an unknown concept!) Yamanaka tells stories about ordinary townsfolk (the 99 per-centers) trying to move up the food chain via patronage and criminal activates (usually unsuccessful) that typically involve the ruling elite (the one per-centers). The cast of character actors seems to covers the full spectrum of small town types you might expect to find at that time in Old Japan. This is a rather slow-moving photo play due in part to the current state of sound filming (sound came to Japan about five years after it emerged in the West) and the use of static camera setups, but also due to the Director's overdosing on lengthy talking-head scenes. Given its prominence in the film's title, it's surprising to see what a limited role balloons seem to play in the movie (even in the murder/suicide ending). Although character acting (except by actress Noboru Kiritachi who seems mostly lost) is usually good, the real star is the exterior sound-stage set of a narrow street/alley on or next to which many of the scenes take place. This set (decorated and populated by extras) indelibly conveys what living in a small village in Old Japan might have been like. The most compelling recreation of an Old Japan village street in the Pre-War sound cinema! Cinematography (narrow screen, gray (exteriors) / black (interiors) and white) is on the blurry side and lighting is often poor for exteriors (both to mask cheap set construction?). Subtitles are rendered in white often making them hard/impossible to read against white backgrounds. They are also: too academic in nature and need a grammatical scrub; hard to speed read due to a multi-tiered format (using two or three lines of text); too long; and flash by too fast (the reader often has to decide whether to fully read the subtitles or watch all the on-screen action). (NOTE TO SUBTITLERS: folks, this is a movie, not a book abstract!) Signs are translated. Restoration needs further attention to remove/mitigate: the gray; frame jitters (especially during the opening credits); primitive inter-scene wipes (one includes tropical vegetation for some reason); and ham-handed splices. Sound-track popping (due to poor preservation?) is noticeable through out the film and especially during quite scenes. Sound recording and score (what little there is of it) are OK. Recommend having caffeine at the ready when viewing. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.
Review of Humanity and Paper Balloons
