THE PARADIGM OFTHE HARIMAYA BRIDGE INSPIRES GENERATIONS OF JAPANESE
According to legend, as explained later in the film, a beautiful woman and a Shinto priest were separately banished after he gave her a hairpin as a sign of his love while both were on the bridge. A replica of the bridge is reproduced in the same town, Kochi, the site of the film, as well as painted on the canvass of Mickey Holder (played by Victor Grant), an African American artist and teacher who died one day in an auto accident in The Harimaya Bridge. Directed by Aaron Willfolk, the film focuses on Mickey’s father, Daniel (played by Bennett Guillory), who flies from San Francisco to Japan after his son’s death for one purpose–to retrieve Mickey’s art legacy. Daniel’s trip is clouded with the memory that his own father died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. However, Daniel has to learn not only about his son’s life in Japan but about Japanese culture. As for the latter, he finds out a lot: (1) Japanese are very polite and bow to show respect. (2) Japanese keep their homes, offices, and streets spotless. (3) Knocking on a stranger’s door is a police matter. (4) Despite all the bombing in World War II, nature and landscaping blend into perfect harmony. (5) Japanese smile a lot and rarely show negative emotions. (6) They never contradict. (7) They defer to and trust authority and tradition. (8) Japanese treasure gifts. The last point is where the culture clash is most intense. Daniel wants to take all his son’s art work back to San Francisco, even those given as gifts, and he has a list of all those to whom his son gave his paintings. Upon arrival, Daniel is met by members of the Education Office who supervised his position as teacher, and he asks the staff to collect the art for him so that he can speedily return to San Francisco. The staff does not want to comply, of course, so they find a way to defer Daniel’s request without offending him—asking him to make the request personally. Accordingly, Daniel meets his son’s Japanese bride, Noriko Kubo (played Saki Takaoka), and the story of his son’s life in Japan unfolds beautifully with many surprises and more exposure to Japanese culture along the way. MH