• 夫婦善哉 (Marital Relations)

5/14/20 (Thurs)

A 1955 film, also known as Hooray for Marriage, by Toyoda Shiro based on a novel set in Osaka in the late 1920s. The wayward son of a prominent shopkeeper has dumped his wife and child for a beautiful geisha from a poor family, prompting his father to disinherit him for sullying the family name. The geisha is hoping to be the man’s next bride. Silly her. Even after the man’s wife dies, making him available, he avoids marriage in hopes of earning his father’s forgiveness – and inheriting the business. He considers the shop his birthright, and is shocked when the stubborn father designates his daughter’s husband as the heir. The geisha is determined to make a life for herself and the man, somehow never doubting that she can change him. She saves frugally in order to start a shop, but is incensed when the lover finds the cash and drinks it away. She finally is able to open a restaurant, which he soon tires of; she then opens her own bar with a loan from a former geisha colleague who has found a rich sponsor. She finally realizes that the man isn’t going to marry her, and the man has to face the fact that he’s not going to get his family shop back, eldest son or not. It ends with a reconciliation of sorts.

The man is an unreliable, unfeeling, self-centered cad, but as played by Morishige Hisaya (later a famous stage Tevye), he is impossible to dislike entirely. It is clear that he is devoted to the geisha notwithstanding the rotten behavior that comes from the entitlement he thinks he deserves as the eldest son. When he is ignored by a former employee who appears to have risen in the world, it’s not hard to feel sorry for him. He is like a Henry Higgins, self-centered in a comical way and treating everyone equally rottenly. Awashima Chikage does a wonderful job as the strong-willed geisha whose delusive and desperate faith in her man drives her to despair. The cast in general is excellent, as usual with these mid-50s Japanese films. Not a masterpiece, but a fun watch.