Anma to onna (1938)

Anma to onna: Directed by Hiroshi Shimizu. With Shotaro Akagi, Shin’ichi Himori, Ayuko Hirano, Toru Hirose. Two blind masseurs travel to a mountain retreat. One of them falls for a visiting lady from Tokyo and investigates a series of thefts.

“This film reminds me a lot of Jacques Tatiu0026#39;s M. Hulotu0026#39;s Holiday. Itu0026#39;s an ensemble piece taking place at a spa. The main characters are a group of blind masseurs and, as the title says, a woman, but there are several other characters wandering around the resort. It has a certain gentleness to it thatu0026#39;s really quite wonderful, and itu0026#39;s beautifully made. There are a couple of standout sequences, most notably the one where one blind masseuse encounters the woman and notices her by her perfume. But she stays completely silent and watches him while he searches for her. The tone of the film is slightly comic, but in this area it doesnu0026#39;t succeed very well. There are a lot of jokes at the expense of the blind men, which just seems tasteless, even for 1938.”