Mr. Thank You

Hiroshi Shimizu's 1936 Japanese film takes place almost entirely inside a bus and on the road. The driver is called Mr Thank You because he thanks everyone who steps aside for him in the villages he passes, running the same route from the mountains of Izu towards Tokyo again and again. The passengers change: a young girl being sent to the city to be sold and her mother, a brash woman, an unemployed man, a Korean labourer who worked on building the road. The film does not tie them into a story; it builds the Japan of the Depression years out of what the passengers say. Much of it was shot from a genuinely moving vehicle, an unusual method for the period. It is short and light in tone while the matter underneath is heavy. Who it's for: viewers who like classical Japanese cinema and road films. Who it's not for: anyone expecting a plot; the film is a route and little else.