The Little House (2014)
Slavery and infidelity in historical Japan.
Director Yoji Yamada's is 93 years old and has made 90 movies! He’s big into making sequels. There are 48 movies in his Toro-san series, and I recently told you about my love for his samurai drama trilogy.
I was compelled to watch another of his exceptional movies but wanted it to be a standalone. After reading lots of reviews, I chose 'The Little House' (2014). I chose right!
To paraphrase the 1930s beginning of the 'The Little House', the decade Yamada was born, "It was when geisha houses would buy pretty village teenagers from their families, and when becoming a maid was good training to becoming a wife."
90% of movie is shot inside the house in the suburbs of Tokyo. The story is two-pronged, the relationship of a rural maid with an upper middle-class family, and a romance. It's both plaintive and melodramatic without being saccharine.
It's fascinating to see the reaction of the characters as Japan attacks China, and then America i.e., the average person is the same in every country, short-sightedly more nationalistic than alarmed. The father of the household hopes that his company will get to sell more toys in China - I'm sure the director/screenwriter's irony was deliberate.
Actress Haru Kuroki, who plays the servant, won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. She’s also took Best Supporting Actress at the 38th Japan Academy Film Prize (something she repeated in 2015 with another Yamada movie, ‘Nagasaki: Memories of My Son’).