It is impossible to deny that the Japanese culture is one that is very much built on artistic expression, which has made it a country that has been the subject of an enormous amount of discussion with those interested in exploring the extent to which art can permeate everyday life. Whether the visual or literary arts, there isn’t a shortage of astonishing works from a wide range of eras, genres and authorial voices. However, when it comes to cinema, there are a small handful of directors that tend to eclipse others, leading to several great filmmakers being obscured from view, known mainly to those actively interested in exploring the history of the medium in Japan. Beyond the sacred quartet of Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi and Naruse (who dominated the national cinema from the years surrounding the Second World War right through the middle of the century), there are some filmmakers that demonstrated a similar calibre of talent and individuality. Hiroshi Shimizu is not a name known to many of us, and his films tend to be relatively obscure, primarily because he predates many of the iconic masters, having his career start in the earliest years of the Japanese silent era. However, just because he is not well-known doesn’t imply that he lacks respect or admiration, since several of his works are revered as early classics, and have grown to be appreciated, especially in more recent years where restorations and wider distribution have allowed audiences to come into contact with these films. His greatest work (or at least the one that serves to be the entry point to his career for newcomers, based on its accessibility and forthright brilliance) is Ornamental Hairpin (Japanese: 簪), a charming and delightfully sweet romantic comedy that offers us a deep and meaningful glimpse into Japanese society, as seen through the eyes of someone truly dedicated to capturing all of its nuances.

I’ve previously spoken at length about the fact that we often need to view Japanese films from the 1940s as a product of their time – even if helmed by people like Ozu (who rarely addressed real-world conflicts directly), the Second World War and the circumstances surrounding it indelibly changed the way Japanese society functioned, which extended into the world of art, which reflected the same sense of unease and societal disruption that set the entire country off-course. Ornamental Hairpin was produced mere months before Japan entered the war, so while the general tone around this time was still tense (especially since the country had recently been involved in other conflicts), there was still a sense of peace and tranquillity, making this one of the last times a Japanese film could be produced without the foresight of what was to transpire in the coming months and years. There’s a sense of peacefulness that persists throughout this film, with the director crafting a delicate, dainty tale of the intersections between culture and romance, looking at the lives of a few ordinary people as they deal with a minor challenge, but one that ultimately impacts them all in a range of ways. It’s a quiet and very charming film that represents the simpler side of life, as evident by its slower but beautifully poetic pace, which allows for Shimizu to meditate on certain themes without becoming too reliant on concepts that would otherwise not have much space in a film such as this, focusing instead on the more intimate details that broader and more ambitious films may have tended towards ignoring or overlooking.

While it may be small, there are few films that represent the beauty of falling in love quite as well as Ornamental Hairpin, which is a film that finds the precise balance between endearing romantic melodrama and upbeat comedy-of-manners, both of which are integral to the development of this story. It’s an easygoing film that understands the audience and their desire to see something simple but compelling – and they certainly do not come more endearing than this, where we watch as two people from different backgrounds come together by the force of sheer coincidence (where an encounter with the titular object creates what the protagonist calls “a poetic tragedy”, which is proven to be quite prophetic as we explore the world of the film), and fall hopelessly in love, knowing that their time together may be limited, but is still worth all their attention, since they awaken something in the other than neither had ever experienced before. There’s a simplicity in this approach that feels so extraordinarily genuine and compelling, and we quietly watch as these characters unpack their emotions, bearing their souls to one another (and all the other people who occur in the periphery, making this a very endearing ensemble-based film) and encountering deeper conversations that feel fluid and genuine. It’s an approach that we don’t often find in Japanese cinema from this period, where the loosely-structured, playful nature of the story is represented in every frame, making Ornamental Hairpin an unexpectedly profound and very charming romantic comedy that earns every part of such a classification.

What is quite interesting about Ornamental Hairpin is how it presents two of the most iconic actors in the history of cinema, in a way we had likely never seen them before. Kinuyo Tanaka and Chisu Ryu were the workhorses of mid-century Japanese cinema, and often were cast in roles that took advantage of both their warmth and wisdom – they were the maternal and paternal figures of this era in filmmaking respectively, and often were placed in roles that drew on these aspects of their personality. However, their performances here are quite different – suddenly they’re the romantic leads, and are playing the roles of much younger, far more naive people who allow emotions to guide them in their daily lives. Undeniably, this is some of their finest work (and considering how prolific they were, this is certainly the highest form of praise imaginable), and they fit perfectly into the director’s world, which is driven by the most simple, precise and meaningful human emotions, which he carefully dissects and turns into this magnificent story of finding love in the most unexpected of places. The characterization in Ornamental Hairpin is extraordinary – the characters are so beautifully detailed, and carry with them a sense of complexity that we don’t come across all that often, which is a credit to both the actors themselves, and the script with which they are working, which contains some of the most incredibly nuanced depictions of love of this period, which is quite unexpected for such a small, intimately-constructed character study.

At a cursory glance, Ornamental Hairpin seems like an easily forgettable film, the kind of simplistic romantic drama that keeps us engaged for a short while and then disappears from memory almost immediately. Obviously, this could not be further from the truth, and we watch as this group of characters plucked from so many different corners of society come together and share some time with one another, whether strangers or kin, and learn some interesting details about life as a result of a small but significant event that ultimately impacts every one of them, resulting in a beautifully poetic series of moments in their lives that prove how we are all ultimately connected in one way or another. Shimizu made one of the most gentle, heartfelt comedies of the 1940s, a film so deeply enamoured with the nuances of the human condition, it feels remarkably refreshing and undeniably profound, which is not something that is necessary each to achieve without a significant amount of work being done to ensure every detail is working in favour of the overall story, rather than contradicting it, which is often what happens when a film is driven by a both concept more than it is genuine human emotions. Shimizu finds the balance between the two, and creates a film that is meaningful, complex and frequently very beautiful, in terms of both the characters and the scenarios in which they find themselves, which all ultimately coalesce into the most charming and delightful voyage into romance one could ever encounter, whether in real life or in the artistic realm.