Reviews

[Steven Spinali]

spinali at postmark.net

Two More Reviews by Steve Spinali

NIHON NO HIGEKI (A Japanese Tragedy) 1953

Keisuke Kinoshita slips back into a didactic mode with this deeply
felt portrait of family and social disorder in post-World War II
Japan.  Handling the narrative like a collage, he mixes newsreel
footage, radio reports, flashbacks, and melodrama into a story that?s
ultimately very simple -- that of a broken family forced to abandon
traditions of the past in order to survive in a new Japan.  

Haruko (Yuko Mochizuki) has been forced by necessity to work as a
maid and hostess to support her two teenage children, both of whom
take their relative comfort for granted.  But it?s been at a price:
these sullen children have had to largely raise themselves in the
absence of a mother who works day and night, and in the absence a
father whom (we can only assume) died in the war.  

This independence has had other effects that are perhaps less
desirable.  Her son Seiichi (Masami Taura) has announced that he wants
to be adopted into the family of an elderly doctor; while he would no
longer require Haruko?s support, it would also spell the end of their
family name.  Of course, Haruko is adamant against the change in the
birth registry.  Haruko?s daughter Utaro (Yoko Katsuragi) takes
English lessons (again, thanks solely to her mother?s support), but
she?s also the object of affection for her somewhat older teacher (Ken
Uehara), who is tormented by a shrewish wife and an unappreciative
daughter.  Utaro is perfectly aware of this, but feigns ignorance as a
kind of cruel game.

Most of the characters are a mix of bad and good, and it?s this
balance that gives the melodrama a feel of emotional honesty.  Haruko
is a dutiful mother, but herself is no angel; she will and does resort
to stealing and black-marketeering to allow her and her children to
survive.  (She?s already been fired from one inn for exactly that.) 
Seiichi may seem unfilial, but he?s also -- like his mother --
realistic and self-reliant, and there?s no question he?ll be able to
survive in tight times.  And while Utaro is as calculating as her
brother, she?s not so mercenary that sympathy is beyond her; in fact,
she?s the force that saves her mentor.  Even a desperate street
musician (Keiji Sada), half-abandoning his family and drinking up his
donations, is an unfailing support for Haruko and many others in his
circle.  

A Japanese Tragedy itself is sometimes caught beween opposing forces
-- particularly in the first half, when the film shifts between fact
and fiction, flashback and present-time, didacticism and melodrama. 
His cavalier editing and inelegant transitions (by no means isolated
to this film alone) that may tend to leave the viewer disoriented. 
Kinoshita?s rewards us for our patience, however.  Some of the more
touching scenes occur in Haruko and the childrens? past: sad Seiichi
and Utaro cooking rice in a dusty plot outside their home...Haruko
suffering chastisement from her neighbors, or humiliation from having
to bed a client...or in the gratefulness of Haruko?s neighbors who
depend on her generosity.

Although technically rough at times, the drama comes together to an
extraordinarily moving and in many ways inevitable finish.  Abandoned
by her children, burdened by unpayable debts incurred through bad
investments, and pursued by a suitor she cannot love, Haruko ends up
with neither family nor future, and only her dignity to preserve. 
Everyone else here seems to have given up on dignity -- the effect of
hard times and harder choices -- but Haruko comes from a different
generation.  Her type clearly is on the way out, the film?s Japanese
tragedy.


KARUMEN JUNJOSU (Carmen?s Pure Love) 1952

Scored to the music of Bizet, Carmen?s Pure Love continues the
amusing adventures of Carmen (Hideko Takamine) following her
misadventures in Tokyo?s world of art, striptease, art-striptease, and
romance...all of this as her money slowly dries up.  Carmen Comes Home
is back home.

Things aren?t easy.  Carmen?s roommate and pal has an infant she
can?t afford to care for on a stripper?s salary, so it?s obvious (at
least to Carmen) that they have to give the child away.  Besides, the
squalling is keeping Carmen up at nights, and artists must get their
sleep.  Or as Carmen says to the child: ?Be quiet or I?ll have a horse
bite you,? an allusion to her childhood past on a farm (and her movie
past with Horse).  

Their half-baked plan is to leave the child at a affluent-looking
home and drop it in the arms of whomever answers the door.  It almost
works...or at least, it would have if not for the mother?s last minute
regrets.  After some explaining, the girls get the baby back, but not
before Carmen has a chance to meet the strange bunch who live there. 
It includes a bucktoothed militarist diehard up for Diet elections; a
man (maybe her husband, though he acts more like an underling) who
marches about the house as if the war were still on; a handsome and
somewhat dissipated artist (Masao Wakahara) who creates abstract
sculptures almost as kitschy as Carmen?s striptease act; and the
unfortunate servant stuck with having to wear the artist?s lopsided
textile creations.  In the artist, Carmen thinks she finds a kindred
spirit (though he, like most people she meets, gets the feeling she?s
?weak in the head.?  Little does our heroine know that this charming
womanizer is already obligated to pay off a woman with his
illegitimate child, a woman who has every intention of informing the
press if she?s not properly compensated.  Not surprisingly, the
prospective Diet member has no intention of allowing a stripper to
associate with her son and make things even worse.  In fact, her son?s
marriage has already been arranged.

The whole situation is a moment of truth for Carmen, who warms up to
the artist in spite of it all -- but love has a tendency to screw up
everything.  When the whole household (including the artist) comes to
see Carmen?s show, she experiences shame for the first time.  She
refuses to strip, gets fired, and now has to make her money walking
around in a paper mache advertising costume -- just where she needs to
be in order to singlehandedly destroy the candidate?s chances for
election in a matter of seconds, and with complete innocence.

Unlike Keisuke Kinoshita?s previous Carmen film, this is shot in a
gloomy black and white, probably to reflect the rough economic
conditions of the time.  He?s less successful in his framing strategy.
 With all the bad art on display, Kinoshita makes every effort
possible to force irony by placing the camera on a bias, so just about
all the scenes look as if they filmed on a listing boat.  Kinoshita is
better known for his sensitivity than subtlety, and technically,
Carmen?s Pure Love is more than a little disconcerting.  I found I was
unconsciously twisting my next back and forth just to keep the frame
level -- and a few members of the audience were, too.

It?s possible that Kinoshita may have wanted to film another sequel,
because the film ends rather abruptly, never really resolving main the
characters? fates.  Instead, written titles pop up on the screen
saying, ?WHERE ARE YOU HEADED, CARMEN?? and ?CHIN UP, CARMEN!?  It?s
fine advice for her, but we?re left in the lurch.  If it?s any
consolation, the star and director were soon to go on to make
Twenty-Four Eyes, which repays us double and a half for our patience.