The middle-aged man in the title of Minoru Shibuya’s wam-hearted drama is a factory foreman who believes in the power of human kindness. A machine is no better than the human hand, he tells his staff somewhat prophetically explaining to them that they must remember that they are human and take of themselves and others. Yet even at work, there are those who are annoyed by him as he wanders around checking people’s work and offering advice.
Yet when Kondo is asked to go to another factory in Nagano to teach some children, he tries to object that he doesn’t know anything about teaching, though is eventually persuaded to go anyway much to the annoyance of his wife, Okiyo, who thinks he’s too much of a soft touch. She might be right that regard, and there is something to be said for the idea that they asked him because they knew he wouldn’t put up too much of a fight. She eventually goes on such a long rant about how annoyed she is by her husband’s excessive kindness that it almost ends up ruining her brother’s engagement. Kondo’s thoughts are unexpectedly progressive in contrast with those of his wife as he tells her that taking care of children is a meaningful job in its own right that not everyone can do, though the couple appear to have no children of their own.
Kondo has, however, taken on the role of surrogate father to the son of a widowed neighbour, Haruo. He continues to call the boy “bocchan” which means something equivalent to “young master”, while the boy calls him “Ojisan”, a fairly generic way of addressing a middle-aged man, bearing out the class disparity between them. A similar sense of class disparity exists between Okiyo’s brother Jukichi and his prospective bride Kazuko who turns out to come from a former samurai family who have a suit of armour in the living room and show Mrs Kondo a long scroll listing their ancestors going back to the Sengoku era. When she tries to tell Kondo about it, he misunderstands and thinks she’s talking about a kind of fish, so alien all of this is to him.
The film seems to be saying that class barriers like these need to come down as Jukichi and Kazuko appear to be getting on quite well, effectively dating despite having been set up for an arranged marriage. Despite the difficult economic circumstances, Jukichi has been able to rent a house and a date house now been set for the wedding. This may, in its way, be a reminder that everyone needs to pull together as one for the war effort rather than allowing outdated feudal notions of class distinction prevent them working together effectively. Kondo’s kindness operates in quite the same way as he pitches in to help his neighbours plant tomatoes and is generally available whenever anyone needs help.
Matters take a more serious turn when Haruo becomes ill after eating a sweet Kondo brought back from Nagano. Though there is no way to know that it was the sweet that made him ill, Kondo feels responsible and insists on taking him to the hospital where it is discovered that his condition is more serious than anyone had assumed. The doctors eventually suggest a blood transfusion. Kondo is not a match and has to content himself with cold baths at the Shinto shrine to pray for Haruo’s recovery, but Okiyo is and in a weird way it’s like she gets a transfusion herself. No longer so grumpy, she’s come round to her husband’s way of thinking and learned how good it can feel to help others.
Meanwhile, she’d also objected to Kondo’s interest in traditional kagura ritual dance which she’d made him promise to give up on they marriage. He is nevertheless roped into it, and Haruo is fascinated by this ancient art form that Okiyo only regards as “silly dancing”. When he falls ill, all Haruo wants is to see the dance again and the possibility of doing so when he’s better encourages him to hang in there. Thus the film probably gets around any need for patriotic content with its embrace of kagura while otherwise sending positive messages about the importance of community and supporting one another so that the nation, like Haruo, remains robust.
Windows on Worlds 