Only Yesterday (1991)

GKIDS | Release Date: January 1, 2016

8.2	USER SCORE Universal acclaim based on 116 Ratings

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InclusiveCriticDec 3, 2020

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. While there were many interesting moments in this film, its ending was particularly dissatisfying from a feminist perspective. On a positive note, the scripting for children and teens felt very naturalistic, and the countryside art was very appealing. The portrayal of the harm done by sex-divided puberty education was a notable high point of the film, though the lack of criticism towards the teachers and system that led to the boys' stigmatisation of periods and harassment of the girls was frustrating.

Likewise, the moments of pure sexism that are left to go unchallenged could have been a compelling tacit damnation of patriarchal society and the misogyny it generates. (Of particular note is the scene where two young women discuss their fathers hitting them without any implication that it's wrong, suggesting this kind of domestic violence is fully normalised in their lives.) However, by having the protagonist give up on her career at the end, and choosing to become the wife of a farmer rather than an independent farmer or farmhand, it seems that the movie chooses to resolve the tensions of her desire for personal fulfilment vs societal expectations by simply forcing her to conform and take on the socially accepted role of 'wife' instead of meaningfully engaging with any other concepts of female agency.… Expand

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