Over the Threshold

Over the Threshold is about intermarriage between Japanese and Westerners The filmmakers are a husband and wife team who met during their studies at Britains National Film TV School in London The film documents their first visit to Japan together during which husband Tezuka introduces his nonJapanese wife to his family his father coincidentally was the creator of the cartoon series Astro Boy The pointofview is largely that of the outsider and much of the film is devoted to her attempts to find out what it means to fit in in Japan At a deeper level the film amounts to a sociocultural study of a Japanese family who seem to adapt surprisingly well to having a geijan or foreigner in their midst This aspect is strengthened by the incorporation of interviews with other Western women who have married Japanese husbands