- いのちぼうにふろう (Inn of Evil)
9/25/22 (Sun)
Kobayashi Masaki’s 1971 black-and-white film about smugglers on an island just off Edo who decide for once in their lives to do a good deed. I wanted to see it ahead of next week’s stage version featuring the film’s star Nakadai Tatsuya, who at 89 is still very much active with his Mumeijuku theater group and celebrating his 70th anniversary as an actor.
The official English title, Inn of Evil, is rather odd. For one thing, the facility referred to is neither an inn nor evil. The frequenters are basically just random misfits rejected by society; it is the police who prove evil, such as spontaneously killing a random man for being too talkative. Also, the “inn”, Anrakutei (安楽亭), is in fact a tavern, translated in some essays as Easy Tavern but more like Tavern of Comfort. The Japanese title Inochi Bo ni Furo, literally “let’s give up our lives”, better sums up what’s at stake and appears in the dialogue (twice). The phrase usually refers to wasting one’s life or giving up one’s chances in life, but the active tense here suggests a suicidal act, presumably for a higher cause, a well-worn theme in Japan.
sekenbanashi 