Mad Village - Kichigai Buraku

...He was seen as a promising young man who would carry the future of Shochiku Ofuna together with Yoshimura Kozaburo, but his talents really blossomed after the war, especially in a series of "dry comedies" (Iida Kokoro's review) that satirized the chaos of postwar Japanese society, such as "Tenyawan'ya" (1950), "Jiyuugaku" (1951), "Kyoto Closed Today" (1952), and "Yassamosa" (1953). On the other hand, he also worked on "Gendaijin" (1952), which exposed the dark side of postwar society by focusing on a corruption case involving a low-ranking official, and "Bronze Christ" (1955), a period drama depicting a "conversion," and is considered to have reached one of the pinnacles of his talents with "Kikaku Buraku" (1957), a human comedy depicting the egoism of the farming village and peasants as a microcosm of Japanese society. He left Shochiku after shooting Radish and Carrot in 1965 as a memorial film for Ozu Yasujiro, which he had been planning until just before his death.

*Some of the terminology explanations that refer to "Crazy Village" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…吉村公三郎とともに松竹大船の次代を背負うホープと目されたが，その才能が花ひらいたのは戦後になってから，とくにシナリオライターの斎藤良輔とコンビを組んで，戦後の日本社会の混乱を風刺した一連の〈乾いた喜劇〉(飯田心美評)，《てんやわんや》(1950)，《自由学校》(1951)，《本日休診》(1952)，《やっさもっさ》(1953)等々においてである。他方では下級官吏の汚職事件を主題に戦後社会の暗黒面をあばいた《現代人》(1952)，〈転向〉のドラマを描いた時代劇《青銅の基督》(1955)などを経て，日本社会の縮図としての農村と農民のエゴイズムを描いた人間喜劇《気違い部落》(1957)でその一つの集約点に達したとみなされている。小津安二郎が死ぬ直前まで企画していた《大根と人参》を65年に〈小津安二郎追悼映画〉として撮ったのを最後に松竹を退社。…

※「《気違い部落》」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報