• 午後の遺言状 (A Last Note)

5/20/23 (Sat)

Shindo Kaneto’s 1995 work proved the final film for two of Japan’s greatest actresses, his wife Otowa Nobuko (who died of liver cancer before the film was even released) and Sugimoto Haruko, who passed away two years later. He was already 82 – he would live to over 100 – so it’s no surprise that he took on the subject of old age and dying. I just wish it had lived up to its co-stars.

An aging actress (Sugimoto) has taken time off from stage work in Tokyo to relax at her place in the mountains near Tateshina. Her housekeeper (Otowa) reveals when she arrives that the gardener has committed suicide, leaving a note that says only “It’s over” along with a rock to drive the final nail into his pre-made coffin. The actress is visited by an old colleague (Asagiri Kyoko) now suffering from dementia and in the care of her husband (Noh actor Kanze Hideo). She is largely unresponsive other than training her husband in Noh, but Sugimoto manages to rouse her by quoting old lines from their roles in The Seagull and The Three Sisters. In the end, Sugimoto receives word that the couple have committed suicide. That prompts the housekeeper to confess that her daughter’s true father is actually Sugimoto’s late husband, opening a rift between the two. All works out after they attend a randy local ceremony for the daughter and her groom involving nudity and sex. In the end, after Sugimoto has left for Tokyo, the housekeeper takes the stone that her mistress had saved for her own coffin and, pulling a Titanic, throws it back into the stream in a deep symbol, I’m sure, of something.

The film is trying to make a statement on aging, but it is marred by a limp script, unfunny slapstick involving a man who breaks into their home, a clumsy sequence involving the ghost of Sugimoto’s late philandering husband, a ridiculous sideline involving a reporter looking into the double suicide, and incomplete or less-than-credible characters like the daughter with a predilection for removing her clothes. The film makes several inside references like Tsukiji Little Theater (Sugimoto’s actual old haunt) and the long absence of Asagiri’s character from acting (which was true of the actress herself), but that doesn’t mean much to most of us. The Chekhov references are also unclear other than establishing the women as Western-style actresses. The film drifts and, despite some nice individual sequences, fails to find a coherent theme.

The co-stars are reliably excellent. Otowa shows no sign of the cancer that was eating away at her, and Sugimoto is remarkably spry with her great line delivery intact. There are numerous long passages with no cuts that play like a stage show, which these pros handle with aplomb. The part where they discuss Sugimoto’s long-ago cuckoldry was especially fun. It was at least nice to see them go out with a relative bang.

The movie won the Blue Ribbon, Japan Academy Award and Kinema Jun ranking as best film of the year, as well as an award at a Moscow film festival. I wonder how much of that was mainly a tribute to Otowa. Didn’t do much for me. A disappointment.