I was set to see Ozu Yasujiro’s 1934 silent version of this film, so I figured I’d first check out his 1959 remake, which adds not only sound but color. They both proved very fine films, and despite a nearly identical composition and story progression, seeing them side by side was instructive. Continue reading
10/27/19 (Sun)
Having recently seen the fun An Osaka Tale, I wanted to check out more of director Yoshimura Kozaburo’s work, and this was an obvious first stop. It is often held to be one of the finest of all Japanese films of the 1940s.
The 1947 film is a Chekhovian portrait of an aristocratic family unwilling to face their decline in postwar society. This is not a traditional Japanese household: it is a formerly titled family living in a palatial Western-style home with a father who studied painting in Paris, a son who plays classical piano and a daughter who (at least in the course of the film) wears only Western clothing. The family appears to have lived in the past mainly off its inherited wealth and property. But times have changed: it survived the war by borrowing money from a slimy businessman who profited in the munitions trade by using the family name, and is now facing collapse in the wake of land reforms, the abolition of the aristocracy and new taxes enforced by the Occupation government (still in power when the movie was made). Continue reading
10/17/19 (Wed), Tokyo
Lee Sang-il’s 2018 film opens with the murder of an innocent couple in their own home by a drifter, who paints the character for “rage” (怒) on their wall before escaping. This is followed by three unrelated stories in Tokyo, Chiba and Okinawa featuring drifters who could all conceivably be the killer. The film is on the surface a suspense tale keeping us guessing which one is the villain, but its real theme involves the nature of trust and mistrust – “Doubt” would actually be a better title than “Rage”, which doesn’t quite make sense in context. Continue reading
10/13/18 (Sun), Tokyo
A highly entertaining piece of 1957 devised by Mizoguchi Kenji from a 17th-century tale and ably taken over after his death by Yoshimura Kozaburo. It was reminiscent of Mizoguchi’s Chikamatsu Story: the lead was a stingy businessman ultimately undermined by his own stubbornness, and Kagawa Kyoko was a put-upon daughter who gets the poor clerk in the end. But this was a comedic approach to the material, which, though not as deep, worked wonderfully on its own terms.
10/12/18 (Sat), Tokyo
A beautiful meditative film of 2018 whereby the tea ceremony (“the way of tea”) serves as a metaphor for several zen-based ideas: that the meaning of things becomes evident only over time, that we should feel rather than analyze, that we should enjoy every instant in life as an experience that will never occur again.
10/11/18 (Fri), Tokyo
Kinoshita Keisuke’s hit film of 1951 was Japan’s first full-length color film, and the director reportedly created the plot around the need to film much of it outside for technical reasons. Continue reading
7/30/19 (Tues)
Kinoshita Keisuke’s (Twenty-Four Eyes, Like a Wild Chrysanthemum) 1959 Farewell to Spring — the poetic Japanese title refers to a bird that awakens wistful memories of spring, i.e., lost youth — has been called Japan’s first gay movie, but that definition would have to be stretched fairly liberally. One man’s return to his hometown after university spurs the old gang of five to get back together, a reunion that proves bittersweet.
8/4/19 (Sun)
A wild anti-war satire by Okamoto Kihachi. This low-budget film, told in retrospect from the perspective of hedonistic 1968 (when the film was made), shows a lowly soldier doing his best to maintain his loyalty to crown and country toward the end of the war. Okinawa has been lost and Hiroshima obliterated, but the soldiers pretend to believe that victory is in sight in what we now know are the war’s final days. Continue reading
Naruse’s 1953 film, based on a story by his muse Hayashi Fumiko, opens with voiceovers by a wife and husband grumbling to themselves about their unhappy marriage. The wife Mineko complains about the husband Juichi’s lack of ambition and ability, their financial strain and Juichi’s clear lack of interest in her. She busies herself with small sewing jobs and overseeing their upstairs tenants to boost their income, but gets little support from Juichi. Meanwhile, Juichi bemoans his bureaucratic job, his wife’s undeniably slovenly ways and the draining routine of his unexciting home life. He compares the sloppy bento prepared by his wife with the beautifully arranged lunch eaten by the cheery typist at the next desk. He understandably becomes drawn to the typist, who returns the affection. Mineko is livid when she finds out about their secret trysts and confronts the woman, who is shamed into returning to her hometown. The couple thus remain together but out of habit rather than romance. The film ends with another set of voiceovers as the wife and husband each contemplate whether to leave the other – would that solve anything? would being single at this point be any easier for either? – while carefully avoiding showing how that is resolved.
5/18/19 (Sat)
I watched Kinugasa Teinosuke’s 1953 film after the death of its star Kyo Machiko a few days earlier. This was apparently Japan’s first color film to be distributed worldwide, and it made a huge impression, winning major awards at Cannes, the Oscars and elsewhere. Coming shortly after Rashomon, it cemented Japan’s place on the map of world cinema, a position that was to be further enhanced over the decade to follow. (Some have suggested that the title in Japanese, Jigokumon, was aimed at riding the coattails of Rashomon (mon = gate), but that seems far-fetched.)
3/30/19 (Sat), Tokyo
A 1951 film by Mizoguchi Kenji about the deterioration of Japanese values after the war and the misguided attempts of a woman from a respected family to preserve them. Continue reading
1/26/19 (Sat), Tokyo
A film retrospective of the noted actress Iwashita Shima offered a double-feature bringing together two works in which she played the daughter of Ozu favorite Ryu Chishu. And that’s where the similarities stop. Continue reading
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