Hideko, the Bus Conductor (1941) User Reviews

Hideko no shashô-san: Sweet little tale

[Platypuschow · 6/10 · 20 July 2018]

Hideko, the Bus Conductor tells the story of a girl who *Shocker* is the conductress on a failing bus route. The bus is dirty, rickety and simply isn't getting the customers.

Along with the driver she sets about trying to turn things around but will they be able to and will their unscrupulous boss put a spanner in the works?

Standing at just over 50 minutes this is one of the first Toho movies to come out of the 1940's. It's sweet, heartfelt and simplistic.

There isn't a vast amount going on here, in fact it kind of feels like a television show episode as opposed to a movie. Regardless it's well made, the adorable lead Hideko Takamine makes the role her own and it's a sweet little effort.

The Good:

Hideko Takamine

Quaint

The Bad:

Not much to it ultimately

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Toho can make movies that don't end in murder/suicides!

They don't have conductors on the roof Eddie!

Plovers Living on Sashido No-Iso Sing

[boblipton · 7/10 · 31 December 2017]

Hideko Takamine is a conductress on a shabby bus in the countryside. She greets the passengers, takes their fares, and thanks them when they leave. Business is poor; a competing company has new, clean buses. Cheerful Hideko ropes her driver and a visiting writer into writing a script about local sights for her to recite as they travel along their route. Little do they know that their money-grubbing boss has plans that will ruin their happiness. For the moment, they are content.

For Mikio Naruse, with his stories of small tragedies in a constantly changing Japan, this short feature is as good a life as it can get for the little people he cares about. They are kind, well-meaning people who wish to be moral. Happiness is such a fleeting emotion. Perhaps we should all learn to be satisfied with that.

Great film

[fa-oy · 9/10 · 12 December 2011]

This was my first experience in Naruse's realm and I must say I'm glad I chose to watch this film first, otherwise I think I wouldn't have appreciated it as it should, as I can deduce this must be one of his minor efforts.

As I mentioned above, the film is short, it has a running time of 54 minutes, and it is really difficult to highlight much from it except for its main theme and acting; both actually being great.

The main theme concerns a bus company that, with the passing of the years, has become old fashioned. Other bus companies have implemented their methods and modernized their means of transportation, making it yet more difficult for the other company to thrive. The main character, Okoma, one of the two people driving one of the buses of the company, and, in order to modernize their company, then proposes herself to be a tour guide inside the bus, who would obviously explain to the passengers the most interesting aspects of the places located near the routes by which the bus passes. Not having any experiences in how to comment on the places, both Okoma and her companion ask a writer, that they find in a restaurant, for help.

Hideko's acting is just splendid, a really charismatic woman throughout the whole film. The other characters are also extraordinary in their roles, although I really don't know many of them.

I think this film serves quite well as an introductory effort to this unspoken film director, as it is a simple yet surprising film that, despite its short length, manages to at least put a grin on your face.

My score: 9/10

Poems from the bus girl's script

[chaos-rampant · 8 May 2012]

I'm not thoroughly impressed by Naruse's celebrated humanism or bleakness of outlook, at least so far as his prewar output is concerned. My heart is simply elsewhere with cinema. My relationship with him hinges on ways he finds - or doesn't - to annotate otherwise simple melodrama. In The Stepchild it was actresses vying for control of a child's innocent gaze and ours. In Avalanche, a young girl daydreaming a movie plot using characters from photos in a photo book. Street Without End, the most sophisticated of all - I have written on all these and others. There are a few more that sound promising and I'd like to see from this era, but haven't had the chance.

This has directly cinematic charm most of all and is open enough to support personal self, almost incomplete when all's said and done. It has asymmetry that I value a lot, transient nature expressed with some poetry.

The idea is that a young bus conductress seeks out a writer to prepare a script for her, a tour guide's script that spices up the bumpy provincial route she works, a story that entertains and possibly illuminates a journey for the passengers. We go along, passengers ourselves on the cinematic route.

Of course the company owner is strictly a moneyman and doesn't give a damn either way so long as he doesn't have to spend a lot of money. The script ready, she rehearses her lines with the writer, who coaches her on delivery and nuance. We get the sense that she's a bright, spirited person who yearns to communicate beauty that flutters in her belly.

But once the show is on the road, transient life foils her; an accident, then the company going bust after shenanigans with insurance and more modern competition. She doesn't know this, that once the route is resumed again after repairs it's going to be her last, so gets to deliver this poem she had been rehearsing with a smile. I believe this is where knowledge of Japanese pays off, as the girl was coached on the right intonation of the poem, and I presume getting to note the change in her voice when she finally recites makes all the difference.

So fleeting beauty on this last round of a landscape that inspires poetry, this is abetted in a very powerful way by the film clocking at barely feature length, over just as it has begun to bloom. I soak this in as the few brushstrokes of a haiku, each word a small puddle that reflects expansive skies, words interrupted by time but still echoing down the road for the next traveller that passes by.