River of Forever / 千曲川絶唱 / Chikumakawa zessho (‘The Great Poem of the Chikuma River’, 1967)

Obscure Japanese Film #266

Kinya Kitaoji

Kunie Tanaka

Goshogawa (Kinya Kitaoji) and Yujiro (Kunie Tanaka) are young truck drivers in Toyama. Having to drive to Niigata, they stop off to visit Yujiro’s sister, Yoshiko (Ayumi Ishida), who is in there with tuberculosis. Goshogawa finds himself attracted to a nurse, Nami (Yuriko Hoshi); meanwhile, Yujiro takes the opportunity to tell the doctor (Mikijiro Hira) that Goshogawa has been complaining about his gums bleeding recently. Examining Goshogawa, the doctor discovers that he has leukemia, but doesn’t tell him. However, Goshogawa soon learns the truth, and it emerges that he had been on a fishing boat near Bikini Atoll at the time of the US nuclear bomb test…

Yuriko Hoshi

Mikijiro Hira

This Toho production was based on an original screenplay by Hideko Takamine’s husband, Zenzo Matsuyama, who had a penchant for writing – and sometimes directing – what are somtimes termed ‘issue’ films; in other works, he tackled sensitive subjects such as forced emigration (Mother Country), dementia (The Twilight Years), and disability (The Happiness of Us Alone), some more successfully than others. Unfortunately, this is not an example of his better work, featuring as it does some clumsy – and corny – writing, and being really just a sentimental tearjerker at heart, with realism not on the agenda. (The most idiotic scene is the one in which the shouting policeman lets the cat out of the bag about Goshogawa’s illness).

Yuriko Hoshi

As one would expect from a film directed by Shiro Toyoda and lensed by his frequent collaborator, Kozo Okazaki, it’s very well shot and has some effective scenes – the one in which Goshogawa chases a train in his truck is a technical tour de force – but that’s not enough here, partly due to the deficiencies in the script, but also because there are other issues, too. Kinya Kitaoji and Kunie Tanaka overact shamelessly for the most part, although Kitaoji is effective in some scenes after the diagnosis, while Masaru Sato’s music tries rather too hard to tug at our heartstrings. The women in the cast fare better, but have a tough job given what they have to work with.

The film failed to win any awards, but it was a box office hit, and Kinya Kitaoji and Yuriko Hoshi were re-teamed the following year in Kitahodaka zessho, in which Kitaoji suffers from amnesia instead of leukemia, and again for 1969’s Tsugaru zessho, in which he suffered, I think, from general misfortune. Neither of these cash-ins had any involvement from Matsuyama or Toyoda.

As a footnote, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that, in Japan, it apparently used to be common for doctors not to inform patients if they had a terminal illness, although I believe that this has gradually changed over the last few decades.

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Snow Country / 雪国 / Yukiguni (1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #198

 

Shima Iwashita

 

Yasunari Kawabata’s novel Snow Country began to appear in fragmented chapters in 1935, but was not published in its final form until 1948. Set in the mid-1930s at a hot spring resort somewhere in the mountains in the west of Japan’s main island, Honshu, it concerns Shimamura, a writer who rather absurdly writes about Western dancing despite never having witnessed a performance. A married man and father with a certain amount of independent wealth, he’s an idler who travels to the resort alone and meets Komako, a young woman whose company the innkeeper arranges as all of the town’s geisha are already booked for a big party. The two are quickly attracted to one another – Komako  falls for him a little too hard, although Shimamura is more reserved and has no intention of leaving his wife. Still, after returning home from his trip, he finds himself unable to forget Komako and returns to see her on two further occasions, by which time she has become a full-fledged geisha. Shimamura also becomes interested in Yoko, a young woman with whom Komako has an uneasy relationship due to their mutual connection to Yukio, a young man dying of tuberculosis who had been Komako’s childhood friend, possibly fiancée, and is now being cared for by Yoko…

 

Isao Kimura

 

Snow Country was first filmed in 1957 by director Shiro Toyoda for Toho with Keiko Kishi as Komako, Ryo Ikebe as Shimamura and Kaoru Yachigusa as Yoko. This Shochiku version directed by Hideo Oba a mere eight years later is by no means a carbon copy. Most obviously, whereas the earlier film was shot in academy ratio black and white and ran 143 minutes, this film is in colour and widescreen and (mercifully) runs 21 minutes shorter. Oba’s reputation is considerably less distinguished than Toyoda’s – probably rightly so – but in some respects his film does manage to improve on the previous one. 

 

 

As played by Keiko Kishi, Komako came across as childish, over-emotional and actually quite annoying, her mood changing by the minute, whereas Shima Iwashita somehow manages to avoid the pitfalls of playing Kawabata’s heroine, making her appeal for Shimamura much more understandable (although why she should be drawn to him so much is less clear). The music is also an improvement – there was way too much of it in Toyoda’s film, and the quality was also poor, but Naozumi Yamamoto’s superior score is used more sparingly and effectively even if it is occasionally on the syrupy side. 

 

 

On the other hand, as Shimamura, Isao Kimura (a respected actor but not a big star), lacks Ryo Ikebe’s charisma and makes little impression, while Toyoda’s snowscapes were more visually arresting even without the benefit of colour and widescreen. The underwritten character of Yoko is a thankless role in both films, but I felt that Kaoru Yachigusa managed it better than Mariko Kaga does here. Incidentally, Chieko Naniwa – who played the head maid in the earlier picture – somehow managed to get herself cast again here, this time playing the blind masseur. 

 

Mariko Kaga

 

Like the novel, Toyoda began his film with Shimamura’s second visit before flashing back to the first, while Oba has opted for a chronological timeline and also added a little narration from Shimamura which works well. Toyoda had found it more convenient to make Shimamura a painter, while Oba retains the character’s occupation as described by Kawabata, but adds a scene with Shimamura’s wife (played by Kaneko Iwasaki), who is only spoken about in both the book and the first film. One aspect that both films have in common is to resolve some of the ambiguity of the novel, in which it’s never really clear whether Shimamura and Komako sleep together or whether Yoko survives the climactic fire – both filmmakers strongly imply that the relationship is consummated and clarify the fate of Yoko. The two films both have their strengths and weaknesses and it will be a matter of personal opinion which one is preferred, but in my view Kawabata’s famous work is not terribly well-suited to film adaptation. 

 

 

In regard to Hideo Oba, a director best-known for his What’s Your Name? trilogy (1953-54), but still obscure to most, I suspect that his previously-reviewed film The Invisible Wall (1958) was a random assignment that did not especially interest him, whereas this was a project he at least put his heart into even if it’s no masterpiece. Like the other four films I’ve seen by him, it’s well made but not particularly inspired, original or individual. It was his sixtieth film out of the 64 he would direct and his final screenplay credit out of 14, as well as his fourth of five films with star Shima Iwashita, and it’s fans of Iwashita who are likely to find this film most rewarding.

Unfortunately, the colour photography did not look its best on the rather low-res copy I watched. 

 

 DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

Sweet Sweat / 甘い汗 / Amai ase (1964)

Obscure Japanese Film #155

Machiko Kyo

Kyo with Sadako Sawamura

Umeko (Machiko Kyo) is a 36-year-old unmarried mother of a teenage daughter, Takeko (Miyuki Kuwano). They live in poverty in a cramped dwelling shared with her brother’s family and their mother (Sadako Sawamura). Umeko is used to trading on her looks in various ways to get by but has an unfortunate habit of drinking too much. She thinks she has it made when sleazy bartender Fujii (Shoichi Ozawa) fixes her up with wealthy art dealer Gondo (Eitaro Ozawa), who intends to make her his long-term mistress, but Gondo kicks her out when he discovers that she has not been entirely straight with him. Another chance of salvation seems to present itself when she runs into old flame Tatsuoka (Keiji Sada), but this is a world in which there are no fairly tale endings… 

 

Kyo with Shoichi Ozawa

On 1 July 1964, Fuji TV broadcast an original 1-hour drama entitled Abura deri (‘Oily Weather’) as part of their Theatre of 10 Million People series. Marking the first appearance of Machiko Kyo in a TV drama, it was written by Yoko Mizuki, a screenwriter known for her collaborations with film directors Mikio Naruse and Tadashi Imai. Sweet Sweat, released on 19 Sep 1964, is an expanded version of the same story with a screenplay also written by Mizuki. It’s impressive that Tokyo Eiga, the studio that produced it, were able to have an entirely new 2-hour version in cinemas just three and a half months later, especially as their film betrays no sign of having been knocked out in a hurry. On the contrary, it gives the impression of having been made with a great deal of care and attention to detail by everyone involved, not least Shiro Toyoda, a director known for bringing a high level of visual flair to his films, many of which were literary adaptations. 

Kyo with Eitaro Ozawa

 

Yoko Mizuki won a Kinema Junpo Award for Best Screenplay for this film, while Kyo deservedly won both the Kinema Junpo Award and the Mainichi Film Award for Best Actress. She’s first seen here having a drunken cat-fight with another bar hostess, but we quickly learn that Umeko herself is a consummate actress – when she puts on her best kimono and visits Gondo for the first time, he’s initially convinced that she really is the demure victim of misfortune she appears to be. It’s the type of role that’s a gift for an actress, and Kyo is a joy to watch when she gets a role like this one that doesn’t require her to be too restrained. 

Kyo with Keiji Sada

 

It’s also interesting to see Keiji Sada subverting his usual nice guy image in his final film role before his untimely death in a car crash. Sada seemed keen to stretch himself in his later films – Escape from Hell being another example – so it would have been interesting to see what he would do next had he lived. At one point in Sweet Sweat, his character even throws salt at Umeko as if she’s an evil spirit he must ward off, though she would perhaps be more justified in throwing salt at him. Also notable in the cast is 22-year-old Miyuki Kuwano, who is entirely convincing as a 17-year-old high school student. Although this may not seem much of an acting feat, when compared with her leading role in The Shape of Night the same year, it becomes obvious that she was also a versatile talent. 

 

Kyo with Miyuki Kuwano

Mostly set in the run-down Tokyo neighbourhood of Shimokitazawa, then being torn apart for redevelopment, this is a terrific film with a tangible atmosphere of discomfort; everyone seems to be constantly fanning themselves or wiping the sweat off. It also benefits from the nicely unintrusive music score by Hikaru Hayashi and excellent cinematography of Kozo Okazaki. Newly released on DVD in Japan, this is a film ripe for rediscovery and one which I think will start to receive more attention in the near future.

 

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)