Song of Home (ふるさとの歌) 99 years old

Mizoguchi’s 30th film is the earliest surviving example of his work, and his only film of the 1920s to survive complete. Song of Home finds the director already concerning himself with the collision of traditional and modern values. The film is structured around the contrast of two country-bred boys: a coach driver who has never left his home, and a student who returns from Tokyo with city-slicker affectations and Western jazz records. Produced by the Ministry of Education, the film has a simplistic lesson-plan at its heart, but what lingers in the mind after viewing are its more ineffable qualities: The dulcet, lyric, evocation of a disappeared rural past.

Credits

Song of Home Cast

Name Character
Shizue Matsumoto as Junichi's mother

Song of Home Crew

Name Department
Kenji Mizoguchi as Director. He was 27 (58) years old when He died Directing
Tatsuyuki Yokota as Director of Photography. He was 23 (93) years old when He died Camera
Song of Home (99 years)

  • Release day: Wednesday, September 16, 1925
  • Runtime: 50 minutes