I decided to initiate my foray into the four-film Eclipse series set entitled “Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu” with the lesser-known 
Japanese director’s most recent film, Ornamental Hairpin. For the end of this Sunday of hard domestic labor, the selection had everything to do with the film’s running time (70 minutes), although the title is also the most intriguing of the lot. The story is fairly straightforward (a recovering soldier at a rural spa cuts his foot on a mislaid hairpin and shortly afterward meets it owner), but given the film’s complete lack of narrative exposition (generally a good thing, but perhaps in too great a measure here), one might have felt slightly disoriented without the short description on back panel of the DVD’s package. The film is enjoyable, both in its own right and as a cinematic and anthropological glimpse into a product of Japanese art and entertainment produced the same year as the attack on Pearl Harbor. According to the the liner notes, Shimizu caught flack for making such a light-hearted film during war time. It’s also great to see Ozu regular Chishu Ryu is an early role before he became the iconic father figure. For what is described as a romantic story, and even given the Japanese tendency toward emotional stoicism, I think everyone will find the film’s ending to be a real surprise.
Ornamental Hairpin
August 23rd, 2009 · No Comments
Tags: Capsule · Drama · Foreign Language · Romance
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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