Honjitsu Kyushin (Doctor’s Day Off). 1952. Japan. Directed by Minoru Shibuya. Screenplay by Ryosuke Saito. With Rentaro Mikuni, Keiko Kishi, Chikage Awashima. 35mm. In Japanese; English subtitles. 97 min.
When a doctor decides to close his practice for a well-deserved break, he instead finds himself having one of the busiest days of his life, as patients rotate in and out the office seeking all forms of intimate advice. Minoru Shibuya adopts an absurdist tone for this ensemble comedy, which takes place in a postwar Japan where ordinary poor citizens are still recovering both economically and emotionally. Shibuya joined Shochiku in 1930 and began as an assistant to master directors like Mikio Naruse, Heinosuke Gosho, and Yashuzirō Ozu. In films like Doctor’s Day Off, scholar Chris Fujiwara contends, Shibuya, “who worked with equal facility in comedy and melodrama, made his mark as an ironic but compassionate chronicler of the difficulties of the early postwar period.” 35mm print courtesy Shochiku