SYMPHONICAL SKETCH

Year Published: 1937

Format: 16mm

Description: Presented by The Board of Tourist Industry Japan, Tokyo Symphonical Sketch is a short 1937 film that gives viewers a look at pre-WWII Tokyo as it blends traditional Japanese culture with modernization and some western influence. The film opens with a shot of a large building. Planes fly over a torii gate. There are scenes of canals and rivers, train stations, and modern buildings. Viewers see a train as it arrives at Tokyo Station (01:16). Men and women walk to work in western clothes. At a market, vendors prepare their goods for display (presumably the market near Tokyo Station). Men and women work at desks in a large office (01:58); women operate a switch board. Men call out at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (02:30). At a school, young children perform exercises (02:55). The film shows a large modern building with a clock tower that looks somewhat like the expressionist architecture in northern European countries (03:18). A man uses a type of printing press to print Japanese (03:42). Women arrange cherry boughs. Women work on embroidering designs (04:40). Two westerners talk with a store clerk about an item at what looks like a department store. A woman shops for sandals. Two women browse the kitchen section of a department store. There is a tracking shot of storefronts along a street. Women look at Japanese mannequins displaying kimonos in a store window (06:02). There is a shot of a main thoroughfare in Tokyo (06:25). A view from a tall building overlooks what appears to be the Arakawa River with bridges spanning the river. Boats travel along the river. An oil refinery or production plant billows smoke (06:56). The film features several quick shots inside factories, showing shots of mechanical gears, looms spinning thread, and what appears to be the production of paper. Men clean the inside of a locomotive engine. Viewers see train engines in a production plant; heavy artillery shells are carried along a conveyer. People visit Meiji Jingu (09:04). Men and women process through the gardens of the shrine. Next, the film takes viewers to the Imperial Palace and a look across the moat at the East Gardens (09:40). People row boats out on a pond. Viewers see cranes and ducks at the garden. Two women walk into what could be either a Buddhist temple or the building of an art museum (11:37), because the film then cuts to people looking at statues and paintings housed in a gallery or museum. Viewers see a large buddha statue (13:00); that is followed by shots of pagodas. A young girl uses chopsticks to move noodles into a bowl (14:35). Two men serve customers at a small restaurant. Two westerners sit at the bar in a ramen restaurant. People drive bumper cars at a small park (16:11). There are more shots of Tokyo’s streets, signs, and buildings. Footage shows a baseball game in a large stadium (17:09), as well as a huge crowd watching a horse race at the tracks. Pedestrians and buses cross a bridge. Viewers see the sun setting over Tokyo, followed by shots of Tokyo lit up at night (business signs and street lamps). A man cuts fish at a sushi bar (19:14). Women carry trays of food up to a room where men are meeting. A theatre set rotates behind the curtains (20:10). Viewers see a traditional Japanese performance where a woman dances with two fans. People dine in booths at a restaurant. At the Tokyo Post Office, men sort letters and packages (21:44). Newspapers fly off a printing press. The film shows a few more quick shots of production floors inside factories, and then it concludes with footage of a cars driving down a street at night.

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