THE GARDEN OF WOMEN / WOMAN'S WORLD / WOMEN'S PLACE (LIT.) (ONNA NO SONO). Viewed on Streaming. Cinematography = seven (7) stars; restoration = six (6) stars; subtitles = six (6) stars. Shochiku Director Keisuke Kinoshita (who is also credited as co-writer) creates a riveting melodrama where remnants of WW II militarist rule/indoctrination clash with a postwar generation of young woman at a Kyoto, privately-funded, woman's college. The school's real function appears to be to catch, crush, and destroy post-war modernistic thinking and tendencies in students enrolled by their mostly upper-class, reactionary parents. The results are both tragic (one student is eventually driven to suicide) and optimistic for the future (a smoldering student rebellion against college administrators and teachers is finally at least partially successful (or so it would seem). While the plot line and script are original and fascinating, it is Kinoshita's cast that makes for a standout film. Well-known lead actresses Keiko Kishi (playing a coasting student), Yoshiko Kuga (a student whose father mostly finances the college), Hideko Takamine (a really serious student), and Mieko Takamine (no relation and playing a school-administrator villain) deliver exceptional performances (and are a pleasure to watch). Like all actresses with speaking roles, however, they are a bit too old to play undergraduates (but would seem to be about right for graduate students in a university!). Subtitles are occasionally hard to fully read (without resorting to the pause button) and often fail to catch the ongoing "correction" of student dialects by forcing them to abandon Western Kansai-Ben in favor of Tokyo Kanto-Ben. Cinematography (narrow screen, black & white) is stark, but fine. Lighting, however, is often poor. Dark scenes are usually just too dark to see much of what is going on. This may in part be due to lack of restoration which also includes failure to remove wear marks and video/audio artifacts. A bit long, but highly recommended. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.
Review of The Garden of Women
