• 浪花の恋の物語 (Chikamatsu’s Love in Osaka)

5/27/25 (Tues)

Uchida Tomu’s 1959 film, based loosely on playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s 18th-century puppet classic Courier from Hell (冥途の飛脚 ). The English title is misleading: it is not a love affair involving Chikamatsu, but a play devised by Chikamatsu about a doomed love affair in Osaka. (The Japanese title is a more straightforward The Story of a Naniwa Love Affair, using the old name for the city.) As with the similarly title-challenged The Chikamatsu Story, the marketers seem to think that the Chikamatsu name is going to be an attraction for foreigners, who in fact are unlikely to have heard the name at all. The film needs better marketers.

Chikamatsu Monzaemon, watching a sparsely attended Bunraku performance of the dance piece Ninin Sanbaso (not one of his works), gets an offer from a wealthy businessman and theater lover who dangles the prospect of significant financial compensation if he’ll write a new play. The theater has suffered since the death of Chikamatsu’s long-time partner, the iconic singer Takemoto Gidayu (known here by his honorific title Chikugonojo), and badly needs a hit. The playwright, though not happy with the idea of money driving a show, agrees to consider the offer.

Seeking inspiration, he overhears talk of an unfolding real-life tragedy of a weak-willed young apprentice to a money lending business who becomes besotted with a young courtesan. That story becomes a fairly faithful reenactment of the puppet play, albeit expanded in scope for the film: the inexperienced boy is dragged unwillingly into the brothel, falls madly in love with a courtesan despite his impending marriage to his employer’s daughter, and steals money from a customer in an attempt to outbid a sneering wealthy rival. As embezzlement is a capital offense, the boy escapes with the courtesan, stopping only at his family home in Ninomura for a final farewell to his aging father before running off.

In a distinct departure from the play, however, the couple is captured in Ninomura, and the boy is given the death penalty and the girl forcibly returned to the brothel, prevented by the owner even from committing suicide since she’s still marketable. Chikamatsu dislikes this from a dramatic perspective and recasts this in his show to a double suicide, allowing the lovers to die on their own terms. The film ends in a fascinating presentation of the story first in dance by the doll-like courtesan and then as Bunraku puppet theater, the latter shown from the puppet’s perspective looking out at the audience. Chikamatsu, watching from the audience, is haunted by the voice of the courtesan in his head.

The play itself is exceptionally well recreated in cinematic language, adding details that actually improve upon the story and deepen the characterizations from the play’s stock figures, such as when the courtesan refers to herself as “merchandise”. The Chikamatsu angle is unnecessary but entertaining, though it’s asking a bit much when the playwright always seems to be in the right place to catch pieces of the boy’s story. Some critics see a parallel between the courtesan and playwright in being in thrall to financial backers, but the latter hardly seems that desperate here.

The ending is intriguing in showing how artists adapt the truth to dramatic truth (the historical lovers do in fact appear to have committed joint suicide). Whereas Chikamatsu was interested in how humans react in the tightly proscribed society of his day, Uchida is taking a more critical look at the system itself, as suggested in the final moments when the playwright imagines the voice of the suffering courtesan as her puppet counterpart dies. The lack of will among the characters is frustrating in modern terms, and maybe the extra layer was intended to help smooth that out for film audiences. Double suicides may be seen as cowardly rather than inevitable in these more sensitive times, when the lovers may be expected rather to fight back. Still, the drama was expertly handled, and I wonder if it couldn’t have just been done as is.

The director assembled a top-rate cast, including strong showings by veterans Kataoka Chiezo (Chikamatsu), Tanaka Kinuyo (boy’s stepmother), Shindo Eitaro (brothel owner, his second Chikamatsu vehicle after the superior A Story from Chikamatsu a few years earlier), Naniwa Chieko (brothel worker), Chiaki Minoru (money lender’s client), and Tono Eijiro (obnoxious rich businessman). The young Kabuki-trained Nakamura Kinnosuke does good work as Chikamatsu’s usual irritatingly meek apprentice. Arima Ineko is fine as the courtesan, especially in her absorbing Kabuki dance towards the end that blends effortlessly into the final doll performance. (The chemistry of the young actors here was real – they later married.)

This is nowhere near the level of A Story from Chikamatsu, which tells its story straight without apologies. That film brilliantly reworks the plot and especially the ending to meet 20th-century sensibilities, taking its inspiration from the original play without slavishly following it. Nevertheless, while Uchida’s work doesn’t reach those depths, it’s still pretty terrific.