The joke is that Lily Carmen, for all her pretenses at declaring herself an artist, is a stripper. One of the high points of the film is that her act is filmed in such a way that it while there is nothing graphic, it is clear to what extent clothing has been removed. And yet, even Kinoshita suggests that while being an ecdysiast may not have anything to do with conventional notions of high culture, there is a certain talent and even art involved in removing clothing onstage. And here is where Carmen comes Home remains quite relevant in that it asks who determines what is art, what and what has cultural importance, and how does one decide community standards?

The main claim to fame for Carmen comes Home is that it was the first Japanese film shot in color. What makes the film more interesting is that it was shot on location near Mount Asama, in the Gunma Prefecture of Japan, out in the farm country and literally one-horse town. With the songs that border on the melancholy, and comedy that is more wistful than laugh inducing, Carmen comes Home could almost be described as a neo-realist musical, closer to De Sica than Minnelli.

But beyond the topicality of Carmen comes Home remain the questions about the role of art and society. Dance is presented both in terms of its use as personal artistic expression through Lily Carmen and her friend, but also in its social form, in the group dance at the school. Lily Carmen's performance based dance emphasizes her difference from the community and her particular individuality. The group dance is to bring people together, to socialize, to reenforce the cohesion of a particular community. It is not a matter of one form of dance being better than the other, but appreciating the differences, and finding comic possibilities in both. As Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie wrote about Kinoshita: "He is quite in love with his characters and he admires their faults no less than their virtues."

More singing and dancing is to be found at Ferdy on Films.