Director: Nagisa Oshima
Country: Japan
Award: none
Movement: Japanese New Wave
A Town of Love and Hope (愛と希望の街, Ai to kibō no machi), also titled Street of Love and Hope, is a 1959 Japanese drama film written and directed by Nagisa Oshima. It was Oshima's feature film debut. Masao lives with his mother, who works as a shoe polisher, and his sister in a poverty-stricken era of Tokyo. He earns extra money for the family by repeatedly selling his sister's pigeons to passersby in the city, knowing the pigeons will escape their new owners and return home after a few days. The latest buyer, upper-class girl Kyōko, unites with Masao's teacher Miss Akiyama in an act of sympathy to help Masao get a job in the company of Kyōko's father Kuhara. Kuhara first declines, but Kyōko's brother Yuji, who has developed an interest in Miss Akiyama, tries to talk him into giving Masao a chance. Yet, when Kyōko and Miss Akiyama find out that Masao's fraud was not a single but a repeated one, both turn away from him in disappointment. Breaking all ties in a final vengeful act, Kyōko once again purchases a pigeon from Masao and has her brother shoot it with his rifle.
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