A Pioneer Who Left a Mark on Japanese Film History
Born on October 10, 1928, Susumu Hani is known as an innovative director who brought fresh energy to Japanese cinema. He grew up in an intellectual family: his father, Goro Hani, was a historian and member of the House of Councillors, and his mother, Setsuko Hani, was a women's rights activist. His maternal grandparents were educators Yoshikazu and Motoko Hani, founders of Jiyu Gakuen. Raised in this environment, Hani graduated in 1947 from Jiyu Gakuen, founded by his grandmother, worked for a year as a Kyodo News reporter, and joined the establishment of Iwanami Productions in 1949.
His directorial career began with Life and Water, commissioned in 1952 by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, now the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Though an educational film explaining the need to expand water supply infrastructure, it already showed glimpses of his talent through beautiful imagery and humor that went beyond straightforward public information. Iwanami Productions later fostered many distinctive filmmakers, including Kazuo Kuroki, Noriaki Tsuchimoto, Shinsuke Ogawa, and Yoichi Higashi. As a founding member, Hani played an important role and contributed greatly to the development of Japanese documentary film.
Children in the Classroom: A Documentary Revolution
The documentary Children in the Classroom, released in 1955, brought Hani public recognition. It used a groundbreaking method for its time: placing a camera in a corner of a second-grade classroom and waiting until the children stopped noticing it before filming. Capturing their natural expressions and behavior, it received high praise, including the top prize at an educational film festival, and revolutionized the concept of Japanese documentary cinema.
His next film, Children Who Draw (1956), received a theatrical release, unusual for a documentary at the time, and established his standing as a documentary filmmaker. Twins (1956) explored whether personality is determined by heredity or environment, focusing on a class of identical twin sisters. Horyuji (1958) beautifully documented Japan's oldest wooden architecture, further demonstrating his talent as a visual artist. His distinctive method was to wait thoroughly for subjects to behave naturally, recording moments of truth by making them unaware of the camera. This became a cinematic philosophy consistently present in his later work.
Venturing into Fiction and Gaining International Recognition
After establishing his reputation in documentary, Hani presented his first feature-length fiction film, Bad Boys, in 1960, making extensive use of documentary methods. It employed an innovative approach: gathering boys with actual experiences of delinquency rather than professional actors and improvisationally incorporating their experiences. Based on the memoir Wings That Cannot Fly, it realistically portrayed delinquent boys' lives outside and inside juvenile detention. Its vivid realism was highly acclaimed, placing first among Japanese films in the 1961 Kinema Junpo Best Ten ahead of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, with Hani also winning the directing award. It received international recognition too, including a Gold Award at the Mannheim International Film Festival.
Following Bad Boys, Hani continued releasing distinctive fiction films incorporating documentary methods, including She and He (1963), Children Hand in Hand (1964), and Bwana Toshi (1965). Children Hand in Hand, a remake of Hiroshi Inagaki's acclaimed film from a screenplay by Mansaku Itami, portrays children's lives around Kanta, a poor student who is popular with his classmates, and won a Special Jury Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival. First Love: The Infernal Version (1968), from a screenplay by Shuji Terayama, is also known for developing his style of revealing people's inner lives through nonprofessional performers and documentary methods. These works earned acclaim at festivals abroad as well as in Japan, establishing his international standing.
A Broad Creative Range and Contemporary Reassessment
Alongside filmmaking, Hani has written many books. His creative work ranges from children's books about animals and nature to books on education, relationships, and philosophy. In the 1970s, he published works across genres, including I Have a Secret, On Love: Why We Cannot Help Seeking It, Gorongoro the Mountain Spirit, What I Learned from Animals, Youth in My Pocket, and Two Plus Two Is Not Four: In Praise of Weed-Like Education. From the 1990s onward, he continued publishing books from his distinctive perspective, including Susumu Hani's Stories of World History (1994) and Learning from Animal Parents and Young on the Savanna (2011).
In recent years, reassessment of Hani's work has gathered momentum in Japan and abroad. Retrospectives have been held at international venues such as the Viennale and New York's Lincoln Center. In 2020, NHK E-Tele broadcast the documentary The World of Film Director Susumu Hani: It All Began with Children in the Classroom. Hirokazu Kore-eda, known for Shoplifters and other films, appeared in the program, which discussed Hani's influence on contemporary directors. An event titled Directors from Iwanami Productions also screened 18 works, including Hani's Children in the Classroom, contributing to renewed recognition of his importance in film history. His pioneering fusion of documentary and fiction, connected to contemporary filmmaking, continues to be highly regarded.
Working across documentary and fiction from the 1950s through the 1980s, Hani left many films full of experimentation and affection for people, animals, and the natural world. The horizons of visual expression he opened left a major mark on Japanese cinema and continue to influence filmmakers today. The innovative methods and philosophy of Hani, described as a cinematic genius, reveal the true possibilities of cinematic expression across eras.
