Double Feature: A Room for Rent (1959), Doctor’s Day Off (Adventure in Tokyo, 1953)

This screening event is part of the “Comic Legacies on the Japanese Silver Screen” film series taking place from February through April.

All films are screened in Japanese with English subtitles.

Second film begins at 9:05pm.

A Room for Rent (貸し間あり, 1959)
directed by Yuzo Kawashima
1h 52m, 35mm

Kawashima Yuzo is another of Japan’s most celebrated directors who is little known abroad. Known for his biting investigations of postwar Japanese society, he directed probably the best comedy in Japanese film history: Bakumatsu Taiyoden. A Room for Rent is arguably his second best comedy, featuring some of the same cast, and based on a story by Japan’s master of humorous literature, Ibuse Masuji. A potter rents a room an old mansion in Osaka and encounters a bizarre and eccentric group of inhabitants.

Doctor’s Day Off (Adventure in Tokyo, 本日休診, 1953)
directed by Minoru Shibuya
1h 37m, 16mm

Shibuya Minoru worked at Shochiku, the studio of Ozu Yasujiro, but his films were more grounded in the social problems affecting individuals in postwar Japan. Doctor’s Day Off was also based on a humorous story by Ibuse Masuji, but Shibuya really inserts issues pressing on Japan right after WWII, creating a complex and fascinating work deftly moving between tragedy and comedy as it depicts the day in the life of an urban doctor who just can’t take his day off given all demands on his services.

This series is co-sponsored by The National Film Archive of Japan, Yale Film Archive, and Council on East Asian Studies, with support from the Japan Foundation.

Prints for this screening were provided by the Japan Foundation.