Paper short abstract:

This paper treats aesthetic and thematic aspects of Kinoshita Keisuke's controversial 1958 film The Eternal Rainbow. Shot on location, the film explores in a semi-documentary mode the ambition and alienation of workers at a steel mill, yet evades the implications of the problems that it uncovers.

Paper long abstract:

Largely forgotten today although popular on its release, the 1958 film The Eternal Rainbow (Kono ten no niji) stands out in the oeuvre of renowned director Kinoshita Keisuke. Set on location at the huge Yahata Steel Works plant in Kyushu and shot in a semi-documentary mode, the film explores the lives of workers at the plant and their families living in the affiliated company housing. The historic moment of the film is the very onset of Japan's economic miracle, immediately before various problems associated with the income doubling and GDP-boosting polices came to the fore, when the pillars of smoke from the chimneys of the plant were still perceived as a sign of hope and prosperity. The film exposes the conflict between privileged regular employees at the plant and workers with no privileges, mirroring a basic social inequality that has resurfaced with full force during Japan's recent 'lost decades'. A further theme running through the film is that of alienation, or the existential question of the meaning of wage labour as a means of livelihood, a question that would continue to resonate in post economic boom circumstances. In foreshadowing and privileging problems that would be identified with social maladies of decades to come, the film reminds us that Japan's narrative of discontent might not be such a recent phenomenon after all.

At the time of its release the film was both praised for its ambitious semi-documentary approach and innovative exploration from the inside of the microcosm of life at a steel works; as well as heavily criticized for its propagandistic features that were perceived as toeing the company management line, and for its non-committal attitude towards the social conflict foregrounded by the film. While discussing its aesthetic and thematic features, this paper explores critical responses to the film in mainstream newspapers and film publications, as well as in an outpouring of real time commentary by workers and others in minor non-academic journals. The paper argues that the controversial aspects of the film stem not from what it tells but from what it does not.