Synopsis
In Depression-era Japan, a courteous bus driver carries an eclectic group of passengers from the mountainous Izu to Tokyo.
Mr. Thank You
1936 ‘有りがたうさん’ Directed by Hiroshi Shimizu
Cast
Ken Uehara Michiko Kuwano Mayumi Tsukiji Kaoru Futaba Einosuke Naka Ryūji Ishiyama Reikichi Kawamura Setsuko Shinobu Kazuji Sakai Nagamasa Yamada Kanji Kawara Kiyoshi Aono Shôsuke Agata Shôtarô Fujimatsu Masao Hayama Yoshitarô Iijima Tsuruhiko Ikebe Mitsuyoshi Kanai Shiro Katsuragi Kimie Kawai Masae Koike Yoshiko Kuhara Tsuruko Kumoi Chieko Kyotani Fumie Mikami Kiyoko Minakami Mitsuko Mito Hiroshi Nagao Tomoko Naniwa Show All…
Director
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Original Writer
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Assistant Directors
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Alternative Titles
Arigato-san, Arigatô-san, Господин Спасибо, Sr. Obrigado, Monsieur Merci, 아리가또 상, 아리가토 상, 多谢先生, 有りがたうさん
Releases by Date
Premiere
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USA
Museum Of Modern Art, New York
24 Nov 2003
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Japan
Tokyo FILMeX
Theatrical
27 Feb 1936
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Japan
Releases by Country
Japan
27 Feb 1936
- Theatrical
24 Nov 2003
- Premiere Tokyo FILMeX
USA
13 Dec 1991
- Premiere Museum Of Modern Art, New York
Popular reviews
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Sixty in September: 27/60
Simply endearing. It has compassion big enough to swallow fears and miseries. The world rolls by slowly. Gargantuan valleys and vast mountains and forests. The photography is beautiful. The depths and vastness of the locations is incredible. And Arigato-san trundles through in his bus, a place in the huge world where people might briefly connect.
Even the mustachioed man, who grumbles greatly, is only prodded gently by the young woman. We know his pretensions hide his own troubles, which are revealed when he is the first to look earnestly for sweets and drink. He's one of them too. Or when the young woman, with a kind of deflecting bravado says she wishes she had a man…
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lovely and very sad. introduces what could just be a delightful, repetitive gag but uses the long bus ride to touch on the passengers’ pasts, longings, and the fates that await once they deboard. and mr. thank you himself what a sweetie ❤️
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Always on the move. Shimizu’s embracing of open space and his compassions towards such different passengers no matter how trapped they might be by circumstances is winning.
Has any enterprising programmer tried a triple-bill of Matarazzo’s Treno Populare, Mr Thank You and Stagecoach?
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One of the best road-movies I've ever seen! It's not surprising that this comes from Hiroshi Shimizu, who made a number of these. But unlike most such films, it's not exactly a feel-good movie, despite its at times ostensibly cheery disposition. And it contains a strong sociopolitical undercurrent.
Mr. Thank You is the young and kindly bus driver whose journey takes him and his poverty stricken passengers from remote, mountainous villages to Tokyo. His nickname ("Arigato-san") derives from his loud exclamation of appreciation for people who move out of the way to make way for the bus. It's really quite amusing.
The film's other key character is a demure teenaged girl who's been sold by her poor parents and is…
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A half-hushed, soft spoken whistle stop-tour through Depression-Era Japan, the high roads and low coalescing into one long, winding cry for widespread tolerance. The beauty of human resilience to come together through times of unrest floods the foreground of the picture, like a rare cloud that refuses to rain on a damp patch of moss. Mountains are moved in the acknowledgement of another not so different, a faint nod of the head coloring days, weeks, months ahead a brighter shade of sun in advance.
The ugly weather may poke its boorish head in, thunder cracking its knuckles even among the more unsinkable eclipses of unbridled joy. And yet, these feeble threats to upset the round trip are mere spits in…
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I felt this in every fiber of my being. Even just looking at a summary of the film brings a tear to my eye. There has never been a better premise for a film. This is why cinema was created.
I have the sudden urge to devote my life's work to Mr. Thank You. I feel an extreme need to write and write and write, just for the fun of it, but I need to learn more first. I will begin with an in depth study of the socio-political climate of this exact year in Japan, and then watch and study closely every film Shimizu ever made. I may never be this happy again in my life. Maybe only when…
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Japanuary 2022: Hiroshi Shimizu
The journey of life is full of so many twists and turns and ups and downs. There are roadblocks and detours, signals and signs, and lots of places to visit and people to meet. And sometimes, while on our respective journeys, it is easy to think that the world centers around us and that other people are slowing us down. Yet, in these moments, we must force ourselves to recognize that we are but one part of a vast system or group, all heading towards the same final destination.
We only got one life, and it is inevitably going to end. If we hope to live our lives to the fullest, it is in our best…
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The easygoing plots echo the movies’ production process. Shimizu wasn’t an obsessive planner. Whereas Ozu sketched every shot and checked the composition through the camera, Shimizu wrote minimal screenplays and seldom budged from his chair, even when the camera was traveling. He shot quickly, making up dialogue as needed and giving actors the most cursory direction imaginable. (“Run.”) Yet this wasn’t a high-pressure situation. Some days, uncertain about what to do, Shimizu would shut down the shoot and take people swimming.
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Ingrid too began to doubt. Roberto went on filming her staring at ancient Roman statues in Naples’ National…
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Spoilers ahead.
The short story on which Mr. Thank You is based includes just three characters: Mr. Thank You, the older woman, and her daughter. This fact makes the reports that the film was made without a shooting script that much more plausible which, in turn, makes the film's frank discussion of the era and its issues all the more striking.
When the characters talk about the shortage of jobs during the Depression, the actors are, perhaps, talking about their lives, not reciting a line they've been told to say. The prevalence in the film of girls being sold so that families can eat, whether into marriage or sex work, isn't there because it was written into a screenplay, it's…
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Up and down the mountain, always looking forward, always looking backwards, always looking sideways - all the people we meet along the way, all the memories we create, and everything that we learn, the most essential sentimental education. Women resisting culture and starting a kabuki company. This film makes me want to live.
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The narrative situation of the film tempts us to compare it to Ford's Stagecoach, with which it shares a certain ethos, but it's closer still to Doctor Bull in how it uses the title character as a way of bringing a diversity of characters together in space. Everyone knows Mr. Thank You, and his legend is founded on his ability to bridge all of these local communities and bring them into contact (as one character says, "things are the same all over") - a role he performs, like the Ford character, without a direct involvement which works in any way to his individual benefit. The most dramatically interesting moments are the play with the rearview mirror, because these are the…
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This road's only 20 miles long, but so much has happened along it. Just think what's possible in this big wide world...
1930's Japan is endlessly fascinating with its extreme economic conditions and political turmoil- so it's interesting to see such a simple and wholesome microcosm of Japanese society at the time. Mr. Thank You is a humanistic appreciation of the significance of mundane kindness. It's also about migratory people and the importance of 'home' vs. the possibilities offered from the wider world. It's also just about a cool bus driver and his passengers for the day, imcluding a lady who brings a flask on the bus and bums cigarettes to show off her smoke rings. Needless to say I now have a huge crush on this woman, whose character I'm pretty sure doesn't even have a name.
Japanuary - 5/31