After dabbling in education, class conflicts and childhood hierarchies, let's get back to the more light-hearted stuff for a minute. A Star Athlete, while being a minor work in the director's overall oeuvre, is nonetheless a remarkable piece in that it is a farce, as well as a studio-mandated propaganda film. In my discussion of Japanese Girls at the Harbor, I quoted Shimizu as saying "next year, I’m going to make only three films the way the company wants me to, and in exchange I can make two films that I want." A Star Athlete clearly is a film "the company" wanted, but Shimizu makes the best of it.
We loosely follow two students/soldiers, Ryu and Shuji, who are rivals over who is the faster runner. The film is essentially divided in four parts. Part one shows us a first race that Ryu wins. Part two shows us the soldiers marching through the countryside and performing a few exercises, part three shows them drinking/getting in trouble at a local inn. Part four functions as a comedic capper and reconciles Ryu and Shuji. Of course, Shimizu's trademark backward and lateral tracking shots are the perfect tool to capture marches and races. The running/marching occupies a large chunk of the very loose narrative and the camera always seems to be in continuous motion. The first marching scene stretches over 10 minutes, during which Shimizu's camera doesn't rest once. The only instances of static shots and surprisingly disciplined 180 degree cuts occur when the soldiers themselves are resting, be it in a field to catch their breath or in an inn at the end of a long day. As soon as they pick up their march again, the camera does so as well. A nice instance of style mirroring the narrative.
Shimizu's use of forward/backward tracking shots as the soldiers advance on the road clearly recalls the style in Mr. Thank You. Whenever the soldiers overtake someone on the road, we fade from a forward tracking shot to a backward tracking shot. Shimizu varies this technique with having a group of women run away from a backward tracking camera and a group of children run towards a forward tracking camera. But while Shimizu certainly (and visibly) has his fun with this setup, he doesn't really expand on his technique, content with showing us more of what we have already come to love about his style. We get however the first inklings of something he would develop later: the use of fades to mark the passage of time. In once instance, a soldier carries another one away from the immobile camera over a bridge. Filmed in long shot, Shimizu uses the time lapse fades to show us their advancement without ever changing his camera setup.
With all this said, there isn't a lot to chew on from the point of view of story. Yes, there is the rivalry between our two leads, yes Shimizu hints at a romance between Ryu and a woman who might or might not be a prostitute, yes there is almost a fight between the soldiers and some guests at the inn, but it doesn't amount to much and the story clearly is not what holds our interest. Rather, we enjoy Shimizu's ability to create memorable moments. If the story can't stand on its own, there are quiet a few great individual scenes - stylistically, as well as emotionally.
Thematically, Shimizu spills the beans early on. "It is most important to win", says Shuji who constantly defies his rival. Ryu, however, prefers to relax and sleep. The question wether one should dutifully exercise and get better (for the best of the country, it is implied), or if one should be able to live ones life leisurely drives a lot of the conflict between the two leads. Shimizu subverts this rather obvious propaganda material by never exploring the question and having girls, children, card players, monks and alcohol distract our soldiers/students from doing their duty. It is pretty light material, but interesting nonetheless.
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