Barber Yoshino

I just saw this film at the Newport Beach Film Festival. Right from the opening scenes I was hooked. The acting was exceptional, which is necessary for a

naturalistic comedy like this to work. Of course, the key element of all great comedy is truth. And the comedy lies in the subtlety of actions, personalities, and words and actions that are humorous because they are true. But what is

the point in summarizing comedy? It never sounds funny that way. The story

itself is an allegory; a stranger comes to town, an outcast in a place where every boy has the same haircut, trimmed by a woman, the title character, whose

haircuts are tradition. The outsider refuses to conform, until finally a group of boys accepts him into their group. These are fifth graders, just beginning to realize their manhood, as well as the world around them. The whole thing

probably runs deeper than I am aware of, being that the film is Japanese, and I have very little knowledge of Japanese culture. The Japan of the film is not the sleek metropolis of Tokyo. Rather, it is a small town where everyone knows

everyone else. By the end of the film, we have come to know the characters so well that we find ourselves almost knowing what is going to happen next, which makes it all the more humorous, for these characters are, of course, human like us, and what is life but the reality of the absurd?