ABSTRACT
It is well known that the perception and appreciation of Japanese culture and society has often taken place through the medium of images, or pictures, from the first Ukiyo-e prints to other forms of the plastic arts, including western-style oil-paintings and Manga. But today’s cinema has continued to be a witness of that complex society which is contemporary Japan, a unique mixture of ancient culture and extraordinary consumerism. And not only through the visions of great, universally-recognized directors like Kurosawa, or the late Mizoguchi, Ozu or Naruse, to mention but a few of the most famous names, but also through the less personal or original ‘reading’ of little known, sometimes almost anonymous film-makers of Japan’s popular movies, now praised by the western intelligentsia. Those films and series (like the ultra-popular Tora-san, Otoko wa tsuraiyo, or the older Zatoichi and Oryu Sanjo) which were originally made for a specific Japanese audience, are now helping the happy western critic to penetrate the very substratum of the traditional Japanese mentality.
