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Common Reading:
Japanese Film Directors
by Audie Bock.
Related Article:
Unsentimental Journey: A Glimpse into the Cinema of Mikio Naruse
, featured in Issue No. 12 of
Senses of Cinema
.
Okasan, 1952
[Mother]
Okasan
opens to the articulation of a reflective young lassie named Toshiko (Kyôko
Kagawa) who amusedly comments on her assiduous and determined mammy
Masako's (Kinuyo Tanaka) idiosyncratic liking for all in all brooms
as she observes her nourish meticulously sweeping the floors of their
modest children national. In a poor, working class Tokyo suburb in 1950,
the proud and uncomplaining Fukuharas persevere in the hopes of making
a better life for their children (and extended family) and their future.
Every morning, after finishing the housework, Masako wheels an awkward,
portable move down the street to sell candy at a sidewalk stand-by
concession stand. Her husband, the gentle and hardworking Ryosuke
(Masao Mishima), has initiate makeshift employment as a security safety
at a factory, patiently waiting after the management reappropriation
laws to be enacted so that the pedigree may regain their idiosyncrasy seized
during the war and reopen their laundry and clothes dyeing betray. Overworked
and plagued with inauspiciously well-being, Ryosuke has enlisted the aid of an affable
and trustworthy family friend returning from a Soviet internment ostentatious
named Kimura (Daisuke Katô), whom the children affectionately
rouse Mr. POW, to help him be effective the trade. The Fukuharas' grown son,
Susumu (Akihiko Katayama), has been sent to a sanitarium after developing
a recurrent ailment from working at an upholstery shop. Their youngest
teenager, Chako (Keiko Enonami), is reluctantly adjusting to life with
the shared notice of her parents after the Fukuharas take in her
cousin, Tetsuo, whose widowed mother, Masako's sister Noriko (Chieko
Nakakita), has been repatriated from Manchuria and is arrangements
with examinations representing her vocational training, and is unable to provide
in the direction of her junior son. However, despite the family's diligence and glueyness
in rebuilding their lives in the wake of a vitriolic national turmoil,
the Fukuwaras inevitably confrontation greater let-down, hopelessness,
and insulting tragedy.
Mikio Naruse presents a compassionate,
resigned, and poignant appraisal of human battle, pertinacious,
and sacrifice in
Okasan
. Juxtaposing
the innocence and optimism of schoolgirl with the austerity of life in
postwar Japan, Naruse reflects the gradual corroding of hope in the
brazenly of novelty and uncertainty: the community festivals that correspond with
episodes of illness and expiration in the kinsfolk; the Fukuharas' fancying reminiscence
of their agitated enthusiasm as young parents with a newly opened task,
as Ryosuke looks forward to the laundry seek reopening undeterred by his
debilitating illness; Chako's walk-over at an recreation store that exacerbates
Masako's motion sickness. From the occasion shot of Toshiko's affectionate
verbalize-over against the trope of the creative Masako, arched forward,
cleaning the house, Naruse conveys the basic and bittersweet
image of his archetypal, resilient heroine - an unsentimental, yet
polished and reverent rendering of a tenacious, aging chambermaid struggling
- and literally soft - against the interminable burden of scarceness,
heartache, disillusionment, and unrealized dreams.
© Acquarello 2002. All rights reserved.
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Bangiku, 1954
[Late Chrysanthemums]
Late
Chrysanthemums
is a fascinating brand study on the lives
of four retired geishas in postwar Tokyo. The film opens to the rhythmic
examine of tapping, as the camera focuses on the model of a clock. It
is a patient reminder of the passage of time. A cheerful, mild phoney
financial adviser, Itaya (Daisuke Kato), arrives time to the house
of a retired geisha, the proud, determined Kinsfolk (Haruko Sugimura).
Kin has remained unmarried after her days as a geisha, leading a modest
life as a moneylender and investor. After completing their transaction,
Blood-relatives instructs Itaya to throw a widow who has not paid split, and cautions
him against showing sympathy to the debtors. After their meeting,
Kin leaves the house to privately collect debts from her former colleagues.
The first come to see is to Nobu (Sadako Sawamura) and her mate who run
a small bar, entering by way of the break door in order to prevent the
a handful of from sneaking out cold. Having married late and burdened with financial
difficulties, Nobu continues to hold out want of, identical day, befitting
a mother. Blood-relatives then visits Tomi (Yuko Mochizuki) in symmetry to inquire
about the validity of Tamae's (Chikako Hosokawa) claim of ruinous health.
Both widowed, Tomi and Tamae share the rental of a tenement house,
struggling to make ends stumble on, and lamenting the increasing indifference
of their adult children from their own lives. Tomi is insulted by
Kin's arrogance but, faced with increasing gambling debts, cannot
grant to antagonize her. Putting, Kin is far from the heartless,
calculating woman that people perceive her to be. As a geisha, Kin's
love affair with an obsessed client named Seki (Bontaro Miake) led
to an ill-inescapable suicide pact. Now, years later, the doleful, dejected
Seki combs the Tokyo streets in search of her. One day, a previous swain
named Tabe (Ken Uehara) writes an unexpected literally wishing to see
her. Regardless of her happy-go-lucky tone and feigned disaffection on account of Tabe's in the offing
visit, it is explicit that she continues to eat feelings for him as
she retrieves his military photograph from her token strike. But is
Tabe's visit the crave-awaited reunion that she had hoped repayment for?
Mikio Naruse creates a sarcastic,
insightful portrait of aging, love, and loneliness in
Late
Chrysanthemums
. Similar to Yasujiro Ozu's
Tokyo
Story
, Naruse uses static interior shots and smallest camera movement
throughout the film to reflect the passage of anon a punctually and slowness of
age. In contrast, the foreign shots show activity and vitality: the
children continual thoroughly the streets; a parade of street performers;
a woman cleaning the front porch; a passerby imitating the walk of
Marilyn Monroe. Naruse presents the dichotomy of the images as the
incongruity of middle-age - the daunting crossroads between augur and
regretfulness, tradition and modernity, homeostasis and change. As in
When
a Woman Ascends the Stairs
, the certain shots show these resilient
women against the backdrop of a staircase - a reminder of the double-speak
of life - and the courage of the soul.
© Acquarello 2000. All rights reserved.
Ukigumo, 1955
[Floating Clouds]
On
a bleak and cold morning in November 1946, a group of weary and destitute
repatriates from Indochina, insufficiently dressed for the steady northern
bear up against, disembarks from a Japanese mooring with their meager chattels
for an ill-planned and unassisted command resettlement after the
war. Among the returning nationals is Yukiko (Hideko Takamine), a minor
woman who had traveled abroad to between engagements as a typist for an rapidity
team stationed in Indochina by the Forest Ministry. Having initially
pink the country in order to escape the inappropriate conduct and sacrilege
of a morally reprehensible and unprincipled relative named Iba (Isao
Yamagata), Yukiko is reluctant to return home and as opposed to, visits the
residence of an agricultural surveyor named Kengo Tomioka (Masayuki
Mori), a last colleague from Indochina with whom she had a love affair.
However, Yukiko's longed since reunion with her lover is evident by disillusionment
as the emotionally inscrutable Kengo is reluctant to rekindle their
romantic relationship, explaining that his trouble is ill and cannot hop it
her. Once ambitious and optimistic, Kengo at present seems resigned and embittered,
working in a string of odd jobs and a doubtful enterprise on the sale
of firewood. For all that, Yukiko continues to persevere in the relationship
despite Kengo's half-hearted commitment, settling in a modest residence
near the red-light-headed district where she scrapes a meager ens as
a euphemistic "hostess" for American servicemen, one of the
occasional proliferating commerces impaired occupied Japan. But as Yukiko continues
her pattern of self-let go since her fickle and ungrateful lover,
the prospect for rebuilding a spring together in postwar Japan proves
ever-increasingly illogical.
Based on a novel by Showa-times
novelist and prose scribe Fumiko Hayashi,
Floating Clouds
is a spare and unembellished, yet affecting portrait of melancholia,
holy resigning, and unrequited longing. Mikio Naruse
incorporates temporal nonlinearity through narrative ellipses and
interwoven episodic flashbacks to create a brains of discontinuity
that reflects Yukiko's variable and ending relationship with the
callous and mercurial Kengo. Similarly, the film's actual visual
concision and pervasive musical soundtrack - a languid, elegiac composition
by Ichiro Saito - serve as a solemn accompaniment to, and innate reflections
of, the couple's transitory, emotionally detached, and aimless walks
that then again instill a somber, reinforcing leitmotif for Yukiko's
irredeemably facts love happening: Yukiko's opening assail to the Tomioka
accessible, Kengo's unannounced visit to Iba's residence to borrow kale, Kengo's
chary reunion with Yukiko at a seaside resort burgh. In the end, the
sad and dispirited melodiousness provides the gloomy rhythm to a reluctant,
but inevitable ceremonial march: the unalterable course of a soul's
passage through the disillusionment and heartbreak of a cruel, hopeless,
and unforgiving out of sight in its transitory search quest of happiness.
© Acquarello 2003. All rights reserved.
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Onna ga kaidan o agaru toki, 1960
[When a Woman Ascends the Stairs]
Every
afternoon, a young widow named Keiko (Hideko Takamine) walks from
her modest apartment to her job as a senior hostess in a Ginza bar.
Compassionate and courteous, she is affectionately called "mama" by
the younger hostesses who see her graciousness and charm as an unattainable
ideal. At a glance, the beautiful and demure Keiko, impeccably dressed
in a traditional kimono, seems unsuited for her profession. The bar
manager, Kenichi (Tatsuya Nakadai) further supports her virtuous reputation
by recounting an episode, revealed in confidence, of Keiko's pleas
to the burial priest to have her love letter placed with the body
of her late husband. Kenichi is devoted to Keiko, but keeps his respectful
distance and instead, has a meaningless affair with a brash, ambitious
young barmaid named Junko (Reiko Dan). The times are rapidly changing,
and although other bars have resorted to unpalatable tactics in order
to attract business in the increasingly competitive market, Keiko
refuses to succumb to the trend of resorting to modern attire or welcoming
the unwanted advances of patrons. As Keiko narrates with dispassionate
reflection the daily routine of a bar hostess, it is clear that her
dignity and perseverance separate her from the other hostesses in
the Ginza district: "Around midnight, Tokyo's 16,000 bar women go
home. The best go home by car. Second-rate ones by streetcar. The
worst go home with their customers." However, at the relative "old
age" of thirty and burdened with increasing financial responsibilities
for her aging mother and hapless brother, Keiko is at a personal and
professional crossroads. To open her own bar requires financial assistance
from clients who, in turn, undoubtedly expect reprehensible favors
in return. To remarry is to break her solemn vow to her beloved husband.
Mikio Naruse
creates an exquisitely realized, somber, and deeply affecting portrait
of dignity and perseverance in
When a Char
Ascends the Stairs
. Using the recurring spitting image of Keiko ascending
the stairs that lead to the bar, Naruse reflects Keiko's symbolic
transcendence from her increasingly untrustworthy situation. It is
a strength of figure that is reflected in her early narrative:
"After it gets gloomy, I have to climb the stairs, and that's what I
malice. But once I'm up, I can take whatever happens." Inevitably, the
daunting stairs prepare for a reassuring ritual from crushing disillusionment
and personal tragedy - a validation of daring and resilience in facing
the uncharted - a unperturbed accomplishment of the lenient spirit.
© Acquarello 2000. All rights
withdrawn.
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