• はなれ瞽女おりん (Ballad of Orin)

10/4/17 (Wed), Tokyo

I was curious about this 1977 movie after seeing the excellent puppet version, which was based on this source rather than the original play or novel. The director, Shinoda Masahiro, was also behind the muddled curiosity Double Suicide.

The story revolves around a lonely wandering blind singer who falls in love with a soldier. While he is clearly devoted, he refuses strangely to engage with her sexually, a source of great frustration to her. Still, she takes happiness where she can. The reasons for his unusual behavior are revealed in a tragic ending.

Two themes seemed clearer here than in the puppet version. One was women’s low place in society, a common enough theme in Japanese film of that time. The material remains ultimately more melodramatic than tragic. Orin and Heitaro are both outcasts, but the latter effectively chose that status by rejecting the nation’s drift toward militarism and deserting the army, while Orin is just a victim. On the sexual side, the film suggested that Orin, taught that sex was evil, sees it as a duty rather than a pleasure, as in her non-reaction to her rape. Still, her relation with Heitaro was non-sexual on his part rather than hers; while she never managed to find happiness in sex, that had nothing to do with her attitude, muddling whatever was trying to be said. For all its potential, the film struck me as a mere tear-jerker. I wonder what it would have been in the hands of a Mizoguchi.

The other theme was the relentless changes in society against the milieu of the increasing militarism of early 20th-century Japan. That was symbolized most memorably in a subtle parallel between the traveling blind singers and the marching soldiers. Heitaro’s attempt to reject the beliefs of this new world were brutally put down, giving his story a weight that Orin’s tale lacked. This offered much potential, and I wish the film had explored this more.

Shinoda eschewed a straightforward telling for an impressionistic mixture of past and present. That approach wasn’t necessarily coherent: his transitions, for one, were not always convincing, including strange cuts to scenes of nature that seemed more intent on offering nice imagery than any insight into the characters or story (like the trail of menstrual blood that becomes a red flower). It gave the impression of trying to make art rather than tell a simple story. Still, the individual scenes themselves were beautifully staged; I wonder if the material wouldn’t have worked better if rearranged and told in order. Shinoda upped the sob factor significantly with touches like Orin’s discovery of the suicide of a desperately poor woman and her blind grandchild (who Orin had failed to help in their darkest moment) and her discovery that her benefactor had died just before they could be reunited. I wish the director hadn’t tried so hard.

The acting was top rate, especially a superb Iwashita Shima (the director’s wife) in the title role and Tomoko Naraoka as the goze leader. There was also a notable contribution musically from Toru Takemitsu.