Kanko no machi

A propaganda film for the government that shows sadness and resignation instead of heroism. Kinoshita tells a story of war that does not focus on the soldiers at the front, but rather turns an empathetic eye on the people left behind at home. In this case, it’s a few residents on a street in Tokyo who are supposed to be evacuated because of the war. Individual stories come into focus in this densely woven portrait of neighbours young and old: a woman still mourning her husband, who disappeared ten years earlier; the elderly owner of a bathhouse who does not want to leave his property under any circumstances; a young woman whose family does not approve of her love for a young pilot. We are shown the melancholy of saying goodbye and that destroyed hopes are so inevitable as to make any resistance pointless: In times of war, national interests take precedence over personal ones. Jubilation Street, which gives the film its name, is not spared the direct horrors of the war. What remains is the pain on the face of a mother who has lost her son.