''Carmen's Pure Love'' ''Carmen Falls in Love'' or ''Carmen's Innocent Love'' () is a 1952 Japanese

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

written and directed and written by

Keisuke Kinoshita was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and ...

and starring

Hideko Takamine was a Japanese actress who began as a child actress and maintained her fame in a career that spanned 50 years. She is particularly known for her collaborations with directors Mikio Naruse and Keisuke Kinoshita, with ''Twenty-Four Eyes'' (1954) a ...

and

Toshiko Kobayashi was a Japanese actress active from 1949 to 1980. She joined the Nichigeki Dancing Team in 1946. In 1949, she was discovered by film director Keisuke Kinoshita and gave her film debut in his comedy ''Broken Drum''. Under contract with the Shochi ...

. It is a sequel to Kinoshita's 1951 comedy ''

Carmen Comes Home is a 1951 Japanese comedy film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. It was Japan's first feature length colour film. Plot Due to the renovation of the Tokyo based venue where she works, Okin, stage name Lily Carmen, and her lovesick friend Maya pay h ...

''.

Plot

Carmen works as a strip dancer in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, appearing in a varieté version of

Georges Bizet Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', w ...

's ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the O ...

'', while her friend Akemi has been left with a baby daughter by her unfaithful

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

activist lover. To spare the child an upbringing in precarious financial circumstances, Carmen and Akemi leave her at the doorstep of the upper-class Sudō family, but soon return in bad conscience to take her back. Carmen falls in love with Hajime, the Sudō's artist son and a notorious womaniser, taking his offer to pose nude for him as a serious interest in her. Meanwhile, Hajime's fiancée Chidori has constant arguments with her

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

politician mother Kumako over Chidori's promiscuity. When Carmen is fired after refusing to strip naked in front of Hajime, Chidori, and Kumako, whom she spotted in the audience, she decides to turn to "serious art" and takes ballet classes while working as an advertising girl for skin cream and rat poison. Contrary to the Sudō family's housemaid, who loses her job after confronting Kumako for her pro-rearmament politics, Hajime agrees to support his future mother-in-law's campaign out of sheer conformity. During Kumako's campaigning speech, she and Hajime are shouted at by a protester, who turns out to be the father of Akemi's child. While Akemi begs her embarrassed ex to take her back, Carmen attacks him for his unfaithfulness. In the final scene, the housemaid, now working as a shoeshiner, shakes her head over the election results she reads in a newspaper, with marching music and battlefield sounds drowning out the street noise.

Cast

as Carmen *

as Akemi * Masao Wakahara as Hajime Sudō * Chieko Higashiyama as housemaid *

Chikage Awashima was a Japanese film and stage actress. Life A graduate from Takarazuka Music and Dance School and member of the Takarazuka Revue, Chikage Awashima entered the Shochiku film studios and made her film debut in 1950. She appeared in films of numero ...

as Chidori Satake * Eiko Miyoshi as Kumako Satake * Tatsuo Saitō as Hajime's father *

Sachiko Murase was a Japanese stage and film actress. She appeared in about 90 films between 1927 and 1991, often under the direction of Hiroshi Shimizu and Keisuke Kinoshita, and received numerous awards for her stage and film performances. Biography Sachik ...

as Hajime's mother *

Yūko Mochizuki , also billed as Mieko Mochizuki, was a Japanese stage and film actress who appeared in films of directors such as Keisuke Kinoshita, Mikio Naruse and Tadashi Imai. Biography Mochizuki left the Tokyo Municipal Oshioka Girls' High School prematur ...

Production and legacy

''Carmen's Pure Love'' was Kinoshita's first film after his nine-month stay in France, where he had met his idol, director

René Clair René Clair (; 11 November 1898 – 15 March 1981), born René-Lucien Chomette (), was a French filmmaker and writer. He first established his reputation in the 1920s as a director of silent films in which comedy was often mingled with fantasy. H ...

. Unlike its predecessor, ''Carmen Comes Home'', which had been shot in colour (making it Japan's first feature length colour film), ''Carmen's Pure Love'' was shot entirely in black-and-white and made extensive use of expressionist camera angles. Film historian Alexander Jacoby called ''Carmen's Pure Love'' an "uneasy, somewhat misanthropic satire" in contrast to the "tender humour" of its predecessor.

Donald Richie Donald Richie (April 17, 1924 – February 19, 2013) was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also ...

was of a different opinion: while he called ''Carmen Comes Home'' one "of the better comedies", he saw its successor as "the greatest atiremade in Japan". While not yet available on home media in English speaking countries, ''Carmen's Pure Love'' has been released on DVD in Japan and Austria.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Carmen's Pure Love 1952 films 1952 comedy films Japanese comedy films Japanese black-and-white films Films directed by Keisuke Kinoshita 1950s Japanese films Films scored by Toshiro Mayuzumi