Kiku to Isamu

[asakiyume]

This remarkable movie, Kiku to Isamu, is about the lives of biracial siblings, older sister Kiku and younger brother Isamu, being raised by their frail grandmother deep in the Japanese countryside. It was made in 1959 and is an amazingly clear-eyed, unsentimental depiction of Japanese prejudice--that also contains a stinging indictment of American racism. People keep telling the old granny that she should see about getting the kids adopted through a program that brings the offspring of Japanese women and American servicemen back to the United States, but one kindly neighbor says,

You think it will all be fine if they go to America, but I read the papers. The discrimination between white and black is terrible in America. People say blacks stink and spit on them. It happens even among the soldiers here on the bases.

And when another neighbor says, "The seed is from over there and should be returned," the kindly neighbor says, "It's not as if they were pumpkins or something. With humans it's women who have the eggs." Whereupon the other retreats into well-I-don't-know-about-all-that-book-larnin'-type-stuff.

What's really remarkable about the film is that they don't cast some tiny, adorable little girl for Kiku. She's only eleven, but she's *big*. She's not only a girl, not only Black, not only poor--she's not even conventionally pretty (though she shines with beauty at moments). But she's *such* a complete, real person. She gives as good as she gets ... until it all gets to be too much. You believe in her 100 percent, and your heart breaks for her. (Isamu also is teased, and feels it, but he's smaller, thinner, cuter--and a boy. All of which makes things easier for him.)

Watch on YouTube

(CW for suicide attempt, racism, family separation)

And then you stop and realize, the actress (Takahashi Emi) no doubt faced some of the very things that the character faced. Wakanomori found several articles about her. She did indeed have a hard time, but her love of acting gave her a path forward. You see some of that in the character of Kiku too. Here's a short clip of her performing, all while babysitting (notice the baby on her back?)

Watch on YouTube

Here's an image of her as an adult:



It's a really good movie, and also a beautiful look at how daily life was lived in rural Japan in the period of Tonari no Totoro. As Wakanomori said, it's highly likely Miyazaki saw it.

Comments

[sartorias]

I was thinking halfway through the review, surely Miyazaki saw that in his formative years.

She is gorgeous, there at the bottom pic.

[asakiyume]

She is! And she is in moments during the film, too, like the clip where she's singing. What she's not is tiny and delicate--but that doesn't mean her feelings can't be hurt or that she's somehow stupid. She's definitely very perceptive and full of feelings.

[osprey_archer]

This sounds super interesting!

[asakiyume]

I would love for people to see it and tell me what things they notice, etc.

It was one of those cases (like we seem to encounter all the time) where you discover that yeah, actually people in the benighted past had a very clear grip on what was wrong with, in this case, racism, and so no, we can't just say, "Oh, well, people in that time and place just didn't understand, product of their times blah blah blah"

[minoanmiss]

Oh my heart. I want to see this but don't know if I can withstand it.

[asakiyume]

Yeah, it really, really hurts :( I think the thing that saves it is the love of the people directly around Kiku, plus her own (mostly) high spirits. But the hurt-y parts still hurt ;_;

[amaebi]

That sounds amazing. And terribly sad.

[asakiyume]

It ends on a within-story upbeat note, and the actress obviously went on to success, but it's full of sadness, yes ... and unrelated sadness--the granny's poverty, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

One thing that struck me was that in spite of the fact that both Kiku and
Isamu had very Japanese names, their names were rendered in katakana to emphasize their foreignness. And that seemed to be reinforced when 高橋恵美子 (Takahashi Emiko) later took the stage name 高橋エミ (Takahashi Emi) for her singing career.

[asakiyume]

Ah okay! When you (.... I'm guessing this is Sharon? If not, my apologies, anon!) mentioned her taking the stage name of エミ I didn't understand what you were getting at--I was thinking to myself, wasn't that always her name? But yeah, if she switched from 恵美子 to エミ, yeah: it could be precisely about that.