Dodesuka-den
(DVD)

Gensaku [Based on the novel by] Yamamoto Shūgorō.

Originally produced as a Japanese motion picture in 1970.

Special features: Akira Kurosawa: it is wonderful to create [featurette] (36 min.); Trailer (4 min.); booklet includes the essay "True Colors" by Stephen Prince and the interview "A Conversation with Teruyo Nogami," translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter.

Cinematography, Takao Saitō, Yasumichi Fukuzawa ; art direction by Yōshirō Muraki, Shinobu Muraki ; music by Tōru Takemitsu.

Yoshitaka Zushi, Kin Sugai, Toshiyuki Tonomura, Shinsuke Minami, Yūko Kusunoki, Junzaburo Ban, Kiyoko Tange, Michio Hino, Keiji Furuyama, Tappei Shimokawa, Kunie Tanaka, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Hisashi Igawa, Hideko Okiyama, Tatsuo Matsumura, Imari Tsuji, Tomoko Yamazaki, Masahiko Kametani, Hiroshi Akutagawa, Tomoko Naraoka, Noboru Mitani, Hiroyuki Kawase, Akemi Negishi, Eimei Esumi, Minoru Takashima, Kazuo Kato.

This film follows the lives of the people who live in a slum, built in a garbage dump. A mentally disabled boy is obsessed with streetcars, driving an imaginary streetcar around, chanting "Dodes'ka-den! Dodes'ka-den!"--Mimicking the sound of the wheels. Some of the neighbors are a young woman living with her lecherous uncle; a pair of friends who get drunk and swap wives; a possibly mentally ill beggar and his son who live in a deserted car; and a man with five children who knows he is not the father of any, but treats them as if they were his own. Although they may dream of better times, these people are trapped--both physically and psychologically--doomed to live a life of disappointment (or worse), but many find ways to carry on.

MPAA Rating: Not rated.

DVD; Region 1, NTSC; Dolby Digital mono.; full screen presentation, aspect ratio 1.33:1; new restored high-definition digital transfer; new and improved English subtitle translation.

In Japanese with optional subtitles in English.