A Flame at Pier

Black and white, 35 mm
Japan, 1962, 103 min
Section: Shochiku Nouvelle Vague

Synopsis

This early Shinoda film, which shows the director’s conversancy in the plots of American social dramas of the 1950s, could bear the subheading “Rebel without a Cause on the Waterfront”. The plot is not original, but the shooting method and dolly shots, clearly inspired by the French New Wave, give a sense of the filmmaker’s abilities before they developed in full in his following films. A dockworker named Murakami takes the side of his employer and protégé in a conflict between the workers and the company owner. Under the influence of his morally corrupt benefactor, however, the hot-headed Murakami degrades into the boss’s personal henchman. He allows himself to be manipulated into intimidating the headman forming the trade union movement, but the latter ends up being killed in the attack, and turns out to have been the father of the girl that Murakami is courting. He finds himself incapable of forgiving himself for his wrongdoing, even in the arms of his boss’s wife... Beyond the schematic storyline and acting performances comes a colourful description of the dockyard environment and the port of Yokohama.

About the director

Masahiro Shinoda (b. 1931, Gifu prefecture) is a director known as the intellectual of the Japanese New Wave. He studied theatre history at university but was forced to seek work early on after the death of his mother in 1953. His experience in the Shochiku studio led to his debut One Way Ticket to Love, 1960. From the outset Shinoda was fascinated by the deeper psychology and aesthetics that his distinct visual style brought to his films. After leaving Shochiku in 1965, in an independent production, he focused on the work of classic dramatist Monzaemon, among others. The films Double Suicide, 1969 and Gonza the Spearman, 1986, for which Shinoda was awarded a special Silver Bear at the Berlin Festival, were based on Monzaemon’s work. The films Silence, 1971 and MacArthur’s Children, 1984, in which the director turned to the consequences of the Second World War for his generation, were both distributed in Czech cinemas.