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      Directing actress Kyoko Aoyama in a pivotal scene of Adolescence Part 2.Courtesy of Honda Film Inc.

      Having spent his early youth in a small mountain town not entirely unlike the fictional one here, and having been a kid with a zest for reading and the son of a priest, it’s possible that Ishiro Honda identified with the youths in Adolescence Part 2, and this might explain his exceptional compassion for the plight of his young characters. During the 1950s a good number of Japanese films depicted tensions between the Meiji generation that led Japan to war and the kids who came of age during the Occupation. The most noteworthy of these took a conservative and rather harsh view of youth. An extreme example is Keisuke Kinoshita’s A Japanese Tragedy (Nihon no higeki, 1953), which portrays teens and young adults as flagrantly disloyal and disrespectful toward their parents and elders, and is a classic of the enduring haha-mono (mother film) genre.

      In Adolescence Part 2, the line in the generational sand is clear. An adult looks askance at some teens and notes disapprovingly that there is “a huge difference from when we were young. It was just war, war, war for us.” Elsewhere, some parents are reading a newspaper article titled, “Parents are too carefree: a dangerous age for rebellion.” Honda’s direction evenhandedly illustrates the rift, taking the adults to task for their hypocrisy while not letting the wayward youths off the hook. This isn’t a story of teenage delinquency, but of the widening gap between old and young and the upheaval of long-held traditions.

      In early scenes, Honda contrasts the earnest teens with the hypocritical, quick-to-judge adults, some of whom gossip about the kids while practicing at an archery range; when they miss the target, it’s a nice visual metaphor for the adults’ cluelessness. The students are shown reading the French philosopher Alain and engaging in deep discussion; the teachers are shown reflexively siding with the cops after some of the kids are mistakenly arrested and accused of hanging out in a bar. And while the grown-ups worry about the boys and girls staying out late together, it’s the adults who think about sex, as evidenced by a bar patron reading a kasu tori magazine (lurid periodicals, popular after the war). Eventually Honda replaces black-and-white absolutes with shades of gray—such as when it is revealed that a female student’s sister is actually her mother, posing as the girl’s older sister to hide the shame of a teen pregnancy and a fatherless household; the woman’s revelation is a warning to the kids not to repeat their elders’ mistakes. As for the youths, it turns out that their parents’ concerns were not all unfounded. As Keita and Reiko hike into the mountains, the sexual tension builds between them; and when they stop to rest on a rock, Keita makes his move, and the couple kisses off-screen. The camera pans away to the rushing river below.

      To the Western viewer, this would seem an unsubtle sexual metaphor—a train speeding into a tunnel—however, it’s not made clear whether the kids go as far as intercourse, and this ambiguity is key: Honda is less interested in whether the youths are going too far astray than in the impossibility of breaking free from the traditional values of family, community, and by extension the whole of Japanese society. In 1950s Japan, the mere appearance of such inappropriate behavior could result in unbearable shame and scorn. These two adolescents, seemingly free and independent minded, are instantly changed forever by a simple, universal act that’s part of growing up. They are burdened with the guilt of having failed to meet expectations and are duty-bound to suffer the consequences, even if it means a life of unhappiness.

      This image has been redacted from the digital edition. Please refer to the print edition to see the image.

      Poster for Adolescence Part 2, featuring Akira Kubo and Kyoko Aoyama. © Toho Co., Ltd.

      Honda elicits fine performances from the young cast, particularly from Kubo, who plays Keita with the sort of muted angst that is at once completely Japanese but universal in the boy’s confused attempts to understand girls, parents, and the looming specter of manhood. There is a powerful sequence in which Keita, beaten and bruised in a fight, is bandaged by a girl who has a not-so-secret crush on him. As Keita lies still, the girl softly kisses him; but rather than accept her affection, the boy walks out and wanders to the school swimming pool and, in a scene breathtakingly shot by cinematographer Tadashi Iimura, swims laps in the moonlight as if to wash off the confusing, conflicting emotions. Keita suffers quietly, internally, worlds removed from contemporary Hollywood teens, who were shouting “You’re tearing me apart” at their own out-of-touch parents. Kubo, just sixteen when this film was made, was beginning a long and fruitful acting career. During the 1950s and 1960s, he mostly played supporting roles as impetuous, hotheaded romantics and heroic types in program pictures ranging from comedies to war dramas. He would appear in numerous other Honda efforts and also play significant parts in Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (Kumonosu-jo, 1957) and Sanjuro (Tsubaki Sanjuro, 1962).