• 五番町夕霧楼 (A House in the Quarter)

1/14/25 (Tues)

Tasaka Tomotaka’s 1963 version of Minakami Tsutomu’s novel was being shown as part of a celebration of actress Sakuma Yoshiko, whose performance in this weepy transformed her virginal image and propelled her to stardom. It offers a rather sanitized look at a brothel full of happy hookers overseen by a kindhearted madam. While this was hardly Japan’s first work about brothels, its salacious marketing strategy and portrayal of sex, however mild by today’s standards, raised eyebrows at the time and (along with Imamura Shohei’s The Insect Woman) triggered an “erotica boom” in Japan’s film industry.

The teenaged Yuko (Sakuma) is entrusted to the Yugiri House in Kyoto’s red-light district by her poverty-stricken father, who hopes that she can make her way and help support the family financially. After gently confirming that he understands the nature of the business, the madam (Kogure Michiyo) agrees to accept the girl, observing that her name uses the same first character (夕) as the business. Yuko is welcomed by the other girls, who live and work at the establishment. (A note at the opening of the film stresses that the events take place before prostitution was banned nationwide in 1957.)

The beautiful Yuko quickly attracts the attention of an older wealthy patron, who pays top dollar (or yen) for her services and offers to make her his mistress. The problem is that she is still in love with her childhood sweetheart Seijun (Kawarasaki Choichiro), now a monk at Kinkakuji, the famed Golden Pavilion, here renamed Hokakuji or the Phoenix Pavilion. (The renaming was presumably at the behest of the temple itself, as was in the case in Ichikawa Kon’s Conflagration, though the distinctive temple is clearly shown.) Seijun has retreated from the world due to a crippling stutter that has led to bullying and isolation and made normal life impossible. He is completely taken with Yuko, his only true friend, and visits her increasingly at the brothel, though their meetings remain chaste. She treasures their moments together, recalling wistfully the times they spent as children under a crape myrtle tree overlooking the Japan Sea.

The madam is wary of the relationship with the unknown boy, especially as it irks the older patron whose regular visits are so lucrative. She is incensed to learn that Yuko has actually been giving him the money to pay for his time with her. When the patron learns that his rival is a monk, he goes to the temple and informs the head priest. The outraged priest promptly warns Seijun to stay away from the brothel and the girl.

Naturally that does not go down well with Seijun. He complains to Yuko about the greedy behavior of the priests, who use the popularity of the temple for their own gain, and vows to avenge their severe treatment of him. The next thing we know, the 450-year-old temple is in flames, reflecting the shocking real-life arson by a disaffected monk in 1950 (the timing in the film is a few years later).

Yuko, dying of tuberculosis, sees in a newspaper that Seijun has committed suicide. She disappears from the brothel, sparking panic among the staff. Her lifeless body is ultimately found lying among the leaves beneath the crape myrtle tree of her youth. The film closes as her aged father carries the body down from the hill.

The film treads gingerly in its portrayal of the lurid sex trade. The camaraderie among the ladies of the brothel is credible, but they’re a fairly bland group with no individual personalities. While blatant sex scenes are largely absent, Sakuma does get one close-up where she is moaning to some unseen action by the patron, which must account for the film’s notoriety at the time. This is no Street of Shame: the film is not a political statement about the social standing of women or such but a sentimental story of a woman in love. The script and direction are too lackluster to turn this mush into tragedy. The boy monk’s stuttering is unique to the arson case and otherwise alien to Japanese film (it’s not allowed at all on television), so it signals immediately that the incident is ahead. I just wish his motivation was better established, a contrast with the superior Conflagration.

Some interesting shots, like the long view of the priest lecturing Seijun in the temple, are outweighed by sappy scenes like the numerous syrupy views of the crape myrtle. In a scene where the madam is arguing with Yuko, the camera focuses instead solely on a girl sitting between them, who listens quietly with a blank look – a distracting choice that contributes nothing. The passage of time is shown by a succession of fans with seasonal images and seasonal flowers, only a step up from pages falling from a calendar. The direction overall is pedestrian. The material deserved better.

Sakuma is competent but ordinary as Yuko. While she was handicapped in part by the limitations of the script, nothing about her appearance screams “star”. In contrast, Kogure gives a smart rendering of the madam, striking a good balance between confidence as a businesswoman and compassion for her employees. Hers was the film’s best performance. Kawarasaki is fine in his shy moments but way over the top in his stuttering, and his hysteric breakdown toward the end is silent-movie level. He won that year’s Blue Ribbon for Best Actor, so obviously someone liked him. But I don’t get it at all.

The film is a product of its time. Interesting only for its influence as a supposed erotic work.