Nippon sengoshi - Madamu Omboro no seikatsu

Director Imamura Shohei asks the former bar owner Akaza Etsuko, living in America, to tell the story of her life in Japan. She accepts the offer and leaves for the land of the rising sun. Etsuko tells her life-story on the basis of newsreels Imamura shows to her. Thus, the film has become a blend of subjective and objective reporting.
Etsuko's father was a butcher. After the war, the whole family was involved in illegal dealings on the black market. For fear of discovery, Etsuko started a relationship with a policeman, called Shimura. This man served his purpose for only a short while, because pretty soon he resigned and married Etsuko, who gave birth to a daughter. Business went well owing to the Korean War, but Etsuko and Shimura' relationship deteriorated due to Shimura's many extramarital affairs. Etsuko started a relationship with the construction worker Fujita. This happened at the time of the San Francisco Treaty, when Japan's independence was at hand. Etsuko found out that Fujita was already engaged and that Shimura had started a sexual relationship with her mother. Desperately, she worked in a brothel for American marines for a while. With her hard-earned money, she bought her own bar 'Omboro', called herself 'Madame', and started an affair with the barkeeper. Her happiness was short-lived: Shimura and the barkeeper asked her for money in a heavy-handed manner.
The Japanese crownprince's marriage to Shoda Michiko, a non-noble girl, was the catalyst for Etsuko to think over her unsuccessful life. She put her two men aside and started a series of carefree affairs with American soldiers. She gave birth to a second girl. Happier and, in any case, much wiser, Etsuko eventually married a soldier who was seventeen years her junior, and began a new life in the U.S.