Middle school boy Masao (Hiroshi Fujikawa) is poor, there are no two
ways about it, and since his father is dead, his mother (Yuko Mochizuki)
is sick, and his little sister (Michio Ito) is slightly retarded, he has
to work as a shoeshine boy. And to make a little money on the side, he
sells his sister's pigeons to people he meets in the streets - which is
quite a profitable business since pigeons have a homing instinct, so once
they have managed to escape their owners, they always return to Masao. One
day, he sells the pigeon to rich daughter Kyoko (Yuki Tominaga), who takes
an instant interest in him, and she wants to help him out of poverty, also
because her father (Fujio Suga) is a rich company owner. So she returns
one of his pigeons to Masao, not knowing that the other one who has
escaped her has already returned but died from exhaustion once back. Mother
wants Masao to go to high school because she wants him to have a better
education than anyone in her family ever had to finally go places, but
Masao knows it's his job to look after his family and thus he's looking
for work. Kyoko wants to make her father and her brother Yuji (Fumio
Watanabe) - in charge of personnel of daddy's company - to employ
Masao, which is very much in line with the wishes of his teacher Miss
Akiyama (Kakuko Chino), who for months has been trying to persuade local
companies to employ local poor folks. She soon becomes romantically
involved with Yuji. Everything seems to be going fine for Masao for a
while, and it almost looks as if he's got the job ... but then Yuji finds
out about his pigeon scam, and he refuses to employ Masao. Because of
that, Miss Akiyama breaks up with Yuji. Masao confesses the scam to Kyoko,
and she buys his last pigeon one more time ... to have it shot by her
brother. I know I might be lynched by world cinema and arthouse
fans for saying this - but A Town of Love and Hope, Nagisa Oshima's
first movie, simply isn't all that great: Sure, it's got its fair share of
impressive images, obviously got more than a few useful hints from Italian
neorealismo, its heart is in the right place and its depiction of
poverty (especially when contrasted with the world of the rich) is
suitably touching. But at the same time it tries to bring its (admittedly
exemplary) social message home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer,
and at the same time, the film fails to bring up a proper conflict to
evolve around other than the rather generalized hardships of the poor. Now
I'm not saying here that the film isn't without its merits, because there
are quite a few, but its more the showcase of a director who shows promise
than a sign of early greatness ...
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