Woman Walking Alone on the Earth
(“Onna hitori daichi o iku”)
1953 / B&W / 16mm (orig. 35mm) / 132 min
Director: Kamei Fumio
Script: Shindo Kaneto, Chiaki Shigeo
Photography: Nakazawa Hanjiro
Editing: Nagasawa Yoshiki
Sound: Yasue Juen
Music: Iida Nobuo
Art Director: Eguchi Junji
Cast: Yamada Isuzu, Kishi Hatae, Numazaki Isao, Uno Jukichi
Production Companies: The Japan Coal Miners Union Hokkaido Regional Headquarters, Kinuta Productions
Source: Japan Document Film
In the opening credits we are told that “This is a film funded by contributions of 33 yen from each coal miner in Hokkaido.” In 1929, men from poverty-stricken villages were sold into deplorable labor conditions at coal mines for three ten yen notes. The film depicts grueling work, lynchings, and exploitation. One day, an explosion claims many victims. One wife journeys to Hokkaido and takes up the hard life of a coal miner. A young man takes a liking to her but receives a conscription notice, goes off to war and is killed. After the Second World War, improvements such as the eight-hour work day, the prohibition of women’s work inside the mines, and equal pay for men and women could be seen, but the empowered workers were took ill and were injured one after another under a system to increase coal production for the Korean War. The film’s climax is the death of the female coal miner after a long life. A repatriated Chinese man places a worker’s flag he has received on her body. A labor song begins from somewhere and spreads to all the coal mining areas. Kamei tried to make a film that could powerfully express the light of human liberation. Filming began with the Hokkaido miner’s union cooperating to provide the three million yen budget, but the final production cost was 24 million yen, meaning that the project went far into the red. Both box office receipts and the film’s reception were dreadful, and Kamei left the world of narrative filmmaking to return to the world of documentary.