Children in the Wind

(Kaze no naka no kodomo). Hiroshi Shimizu’s best-known film is typical of his work in that it is shot in a variety of outdoor locations and looks at children almost to the exclusion of adults. It is the story of two brothers who are separated when their father is falsely accused of forgery and arrested. “Shimizu was not interested in child psychology . . . nor was he interested in making this world a microcosm of the adult world. . . . He was interested only in the child’s world, as seen by the child. If the result was an implied criticism of the traditional adult world, so much the better” (Donald Richie). The boy’s adventures continued in Four Seasons of Children.