← Back to Directory
Burden of Life
Movie

Burden of Life

1935 • Unknown

Woke Score
2
out of 10

Plot

A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted.

Overall Series Review

The movie is a classic Japanese domestic drama, or *shomin-geki*, from 1935, focused on the personal and financial turmoil of a middle-class family. The father, Shozo, views his nine-year-old son, Kanichi, as an unwanted financial liability after the exhausting expense of marrying off his three daughters. The narrative centers on this internal family strife and the father’s failure to value his son’s individuality. The film explores the anxiety and disruption caused by the rise of Westernized cultural trends, specifically through a 'modern girl' character who embodies an excessive embrace of foreign commodities and behavior. Ultimately, the story is a subtle but clear indictment of the father's selfishness and a defense of traditional family ties and the intrinsic value of children. The conflict is deeply personal and cultural, not political in a contemporary sense.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

Characters are Japanese and are judged solely by their character flaws, specifically the father's resentment and lack of paternal love. The story is an authentic cultural product with no focus on race, intersectional hierarchy, or vilification of an ethnic group.

Oikophobia2/10

The film criticizes the financial burdens and internal strife of the Japanese home. Critique of one's home culture is present, but it specifically frames foreign (Western) cultural influence, embodied by the 'modern girl,' as a negative, disruptive force, ultimately favoring a return to a stable domestic order. The narrative is not hostile toward its own civilization's core values.

Feminism6/10

The core of the conflict is the father's resentment of his son as an 'unwanted' financial 'burden,' establishing a strong anti-natal message where the child is a liability rather than a source of joy. The father is portrayed as flawed, resentful, and comic, making him an emasculated figure due to his own failures. However, the film frames the 'modern girl' figure, who embraces Western freedom and consumerism, as a destabilizing force on the family, advocating for a return to a complementary, though flawed, domestic structure.

LGBTQ+1/10

The narrative operates entirely within the normative structure of a traditional nuclear family. The drama focuses on heterosexual marital and parental relationships and contains no reference to alternative sexualities, gender ideology, or the deconstruction of the nuclear family.

Anti-Theism1/10

The movie is a domestic drama focused on social realism and family duty. It is devoid of themes of hostility toward religion or a spiritual vacuum. The moral resolution acknowledges a higher moral law in the form of valuing children's individuality and paternal responsibility, regardless of explicit religious context.