¡±Danchi¡± doesn¡¯t translate easily into English. ¡°Apartment complex¡± or ¡°housing estate¡± are only rough equivalents for the thousands of public-housing units thrown up in the postwar boom years to cope with Tokyo¡¯s exploding population. Equipped with running water, flush toilets and other amenities, with stores and schools close by, danchi symbolized middle-class prosperity for escapees from hardscrabble lives in the countryside. But today Showa Era (1926-1989) danchi, with their tiny rooms, lack of elevators and general air of decrepitude, are relics of another time, with a shrinking, mostly elderly resident population.
A quirky counter to this depressing reality is ¡°Danchi,¡± veteran Junji Sakamoto¡¯s fantasy/comedy that unfolds in one such complex that seems set in a Showa time warp in his native Osaka.
True, most of the film¡¯s characters, beginning with the feisty Hinako Yamashita (Naomi Fujiyama) and her retired hubby, Seiji (Ittoku Kishibe), are middle-aged or older. But the danchi where the Yamashitas have recently moved is still a bustling place, with gaggles of gossiping housewives and a blustery residents¡¯ association president, Shozo (Renji Ishibashi), and his chirpy wife, Kimiko (Michiyo Okusu), doing their interfering best to keep the danchi wa (harmony) intact.
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