Before I watched 24 Ey"es, I prepared myself for what I thought would be a Japanese version of Goodbye, Mr Chips" {a film I have never really enjoyed despite my appreciation of Robert Donat}. What I experienced was something much more realistic and emotionally moving. Rather than being a sentimental tale of the dedicated teacher earning the life-long love of her pupils, it is the greater and deeper saga of a loving woman who happens to be a teacher and who is also a moral mentor for those who need her devotion, guidance, example, courage and love during the lean, desperate, and sometimes frightening years during which she works. That time context is the difficult period beginning with the Depression and including the terrible years of the Second World War.
Naturally a human focus is necessary because of the large time span covered in the film and the director chooses the twelve pupils who are part of Oishi's first experiences and with whom she relates at various times through her life. Kinoshita skilfully manages the contrast between the time and the person throughout the film. Everyone has the right to their own opinions which must be respected, but I can only disagree with the viewer who criticised the film as "unshaded and unshaped to the point of tedium". Yes, the film is long. But every incident has a function and the totality is far from "unshaped". Likewise the criticism that the heroine was well named as "Miss Cry Baby" by her students is unfair. I think that this perspective simply misses the fact that the cultural restrictions of the time {which included a major war} were such as made any proactive assault on social attitudes completely impossible.
So this film is not at all sentimental in the Mr Chips mode. Miss Oishi has accidents, deals with the problems of unsympathetic and intractable parents, is regarded as possibly being a "Red", and has to watch her clearly well-meaning principal burn a book of literary works by students because they are not politically correct. She leaves teaching for a period, in part out of disillusionment and in part to raise her own family, allowing us to see another dimension to her character.
The original twelve students continue to impact in various ways throughout her life, forming a rhythm and pattern which not only brings happiness and sorrow, but helps to inform her vision of life with its stoical, courageous strength—a strength she imparts to them in return.
It is quite a beautiful film and the DVD has as an extra a superb interview with the Japanese film historian, Tadao Sato which is revelatory and sensitive. He mentions that when the children grew older, look-alike siblings were chosen by Kinoshita to play the roles! He explains a great deal about the cultural, political, and social contexts which make this film so effective and have made it a cinematic icon for the Japanese people.
Naturally a human focus is necessary because of the large time span covered in the film and the director chooses the twelve pupils who are part of Oishi's first experiences and with whom she relates at various times through her life. Kinoshita skilfully manages the contrast between the time and the person throughout the film. Everyone has the right to their own opinions which must be respected, but I can only disagree with the viewer who criticised the film as "unshaded and unshaped to the point of tedium". Yes, the film is long. But every incident has a function and the totality is far from "unshaped". Likewise the criticism that the heroine was well named as "Miss Cry Baby" by her students is unfair. I think that this perspective simply misses the fact that the cultural restrictions of the time {which included a major war} were such as made any proactive assault on social attitudes completely impossible.
So this film is not at all sentimental in the Mr Chips mode. Miss Oishi has accidents, deals with the problems of unsympathetic and intractable parents, is regarded as possibly being a "Red", and has to watch her clearly well-meaning principal burn a book of literary works by students because they are not politically correct. She leaves teaching for a period, in part out of disillusionment and in part to raise her own family, allowing us to see another dimension to her character.
The original twelve students continue to impact in various ways throughout her life, forming a rhythm and pattern which not only brings happiness and sorrow, but helps to inform her vision of life with its stoical, courageous strength—a strength she imparts to them in return.
It is quite a beautiful film and the DVD has as an extra a superb interview with the Japanese film historian, Tadao Sato which is revelatory and sensitive. He mentions that when the children grew older, look-alike siblings were chosen by Kinoshita to play the roles! He explains a great deal about the cultural, political, and social contexts which make this film so effective and have made it a cinematic icon for the Japanese people.