Foreign Film Friday -Good Morning (1959)

SUMMARY

In post WWII Japan, families live in small community planned housing. The men take the train in to work, if they are lucky enough to have jobs. In this community, the wives and mothers spend their days, bossing their children, preparing meals and gossiping about each other. Families are making ends meet, but barely.

The children (all of who are boys) band together for their walks to school, and make upĀ  little challenges for fun. They also congregate at a neighbor’s house to watch television when they can get away with it.

Two of the boys, who happen to be brothers demand that their parents buy them a television, but they are refused. An argument follows about who talks too much, children or adults. So the boys Minoru and Isamu make a vow of silence between them as an act of rebellion against their parents’ refusal to purchase a television. This leads to further misunderstandings among the gossiping neighbors who already believe the boys’ mother is angry with them over some missing money. Meanwhile, the boys’ aunt has a crush on their kind English tutor and contrives reasons to show up on his doorstep. Continue reading “Foreign Film Friday -Good Morning (1959)”