• また逢う日まで (Until We Meet Again)

4/30/22 (Sat)

Imai Tadashi’s 1950 film, inspired by a French novel, is a silly piece of sentimental fluff with a slight antiwar twinge. It was apparently a big commercial hit in its day and won the first Blue Ribbon Award as Best Film (Imai’s works won the top prize five times in the award’s first ten years) along with the Kinejun and Mainichi Awards. History has come down in favor of its rival Rashomon, and it is known now primarily for a romantic scene in which the man, loathe to leave his lover’s home, runs back and kisses her passionately from the other side of a window. A favorite of both audiences and critics, Imai is often called the forgotten director in the shadow of Kurosawa, Ozu and other contemporaries, and I did enjoy his Kiku and Isamu. So, having found this online, I figured it would be worth a watch.

It wasn’t. The film is set in wartime Tokyo. Saburo (Okada Eiji), a dreamy student from a well-off family, literally bumps into Keiko (Kuga Yoshiko), an illustrator from more modest means, in a bomb shelter during an air raid. The innocent meeting of bodies, which would normally be frowned upon, sets off sparks. He is immediately attracted to her and eventually tracks her down. They gradually grow closer, but his family is disapproving of the relationship. The elder brother has already died in the war, and the second brother, also a soldier, berates Saburo for thinking of romance at a time when others are dying in defense of the homeland. Meanwhile, Keiko also has trouble with her mother (Sugimura Haruko), a widow who struggles to make a living. Saburo expresses antiwar sentiment among his friends, but as they are drafted one by one, he realizes that his time is coming as well. He is ultimately called to the front and arranges to meet Keiko at the station the night of his departure. Just as he is about to leave his home, he receives word that his eldest brother’s widow had a miscarriage and must be hospitalized. He rushes to her, hoping to himself that Keiko will wait for him. We then see Keiko standing nervously at the station, wondering why her lover has not shown up. Things do not go well.

The film opens at the point that Saburo is leaving the house for the station, then goes into flashback. That exact scene is replayed at the end with the context now clear, an interesting touch. The problem is the parts in between. The soppy dialogue is eye-rolling, and Saburo has many clumsy moments where he is narrating his inner thoughts, not necessarily very profound ones (e.g., “Oh, my brother must be here. I wonder what he wants”). That’s something a more skillful writer/filmmaker would have shown rather than told. That was the most exasperating part of the film. Also, the acting is television level. Kuga is sweet and Okada is handsome, but that’s about it. The scene where they plan for their future – deciding what kind of frying pan they want, discussing the number of future children – was lovely, and I wish the film had continued at that level. But it didn’t. Only the ever-reliable Sugimoto makes an impression, especially in her final melancholic scene, though there’s not much she can do with her underwritten role.

I imagine that the antiwar views expressed by some characters and embodied in Saburo’s role may have appealed to viewers back then as well as government censors (Japan was still under US occupation at the time), and the idea of a twisted world in which war is acceptable while love is forbidden is a potent theme. But it was betrayed by the limp story, partly due to the weakness of Saburo’s personality. I didn’t believe a word of it. Killing all of the main characters was in particular a step too far, especially Keiko (wouldn’t she have had more of a chance to find shelter from an air raid?). I suppose that scorched-earth approach reflects the director’s well-known antiwar views, but it was dramatically unappealing. Leaving one of them alive would have made it tragic; getting rid of all of them is just maudlin. The movie overall was pedestrian in direction and acting, worse in dialogue and conception. Not worth the effort.