Giants and Toys

Yasuzo Masumura's 1958 film is an early and sharp satire of the consumer boom in postwar Japan. Nishi works in the advertising department of a caramel company, which enters a merciless war with two rivals as it launches a new product. A girl with bad teeth found on the street is made a star overnight for the campaign, then consumed and discarded. Masumura deliberately overdoes the colour, the fast cutting and the loud performances; the film criticises the aesthetics of advertising by imitating them. The idea that company employees devoting themselves to work amounts to a kind of suicide is one of cinema's earliest critiques of Japanese working culture. The director's speed in this period is regarded as a forerunner of the Japanese New Wave. Who it's for: viewers interested in the precursors of the Japanese New Wave, satire of consumer society and Masumura's work. Who it's not for: anyone looking for restraint, or who will find the exaggerated playing and high tempo tiring.