History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (1970)

History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (にっぽん戦後史　マダムおんぼろの生活, Nippon Sengoshi – Madamu onboro no Seikatsu) is a 1970 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura.

After the poor box-office performance of his ambitious 1968 film, The Profound Desire of the Gods, Imamura decided to undertake a more modestly budgeted film. This was Imamura's second foray into the documentary format, after 1967's A Man Vanishes. Characteristically, Imamura seeks to investigate an alternative interpretation of recent Japanese history through the eyes of a person living in the lower strata of that society.

Beginning with this film, Imamura was to spend the next decade working in the documentary format. He returned to purely fictional narrative with Vengeance is Mine (1979).

Synopsis

Shōhei Imamura filme et interroge une Japonaise, patronne d'un bar, sur sa vie, son histoire, en la mettant en parallèle avec les événements qui ont secoué le Japon de l'immédiate après-guerre jusqu'à la fin des années 1960. Le cinéaste propose ainsi un double documentaire, illustrant l'histoire événementielle et le vécu de la population.

Actors