LECTURE & SCREENING Mr. Poo (Pu-san)

Lecture at 6:30 pm

Reina Higashitani, film critic and video maker, lectures on manga adaptations in Japanese films, discussing the storytelling technique of both media and manga’s influence on Japanese filmmaking and vice versa.

Screening at 7:30 pm
Mr. Poo (Pu-san)

1953, 98 min., b&w, 35mm.  In Japanese with English subtitles.

Directed by Kon Ichikawa. Written by Kon Ichikawa, Natto Wada and Shigeaki Nagaki, based on manga by Taizo Yokoyama. With Yunosuke Ito, Fubuki Koshiji, Isao Kimura, Keiju Kobayashi, Kamatari Fujiwara, Daisuke Kato, Kaoru Yachigusa, Hiroshi Koizumi, Ichiro Sugai. Distributed by Toho.

Having started his career at an animation studio, Kon Ichikawa takes advantage of his background in kinetic arts in this superb black comedy based on Taizo Yokoyama’s serialized manga in a daily newspaper. Funny and incisive, Mr. Poo vividly illustrates how the working-class lived in the immediate postwar period of Japan from the viewpoint of a math teacher who is secretly in love with a neighborhood girl and experiences a variety of difficulties after losing his job.

Tickets: $10, Japan Society members, seniors & students $5.