Inoru hito / 祈るひと (1959)

Obscure Japanese Film #242

Izumi Ashikawa

Tsutomu Shimomoto

Yumeji Tsukioka

Yuji Odaka

Akiko (Izumi Ashikawa) is the only child of her father (Tsutomu Shimomoto) and mother (Yumeji Tsukioka) and is approaching marriageable age. She has always regarded her academic father as cold and remote and seen little evidence of love between her parents, so she’s keen not to make a mistake in choosing her own husband. Pressured into going on an arranged date with the boorish Hasuike (Yuji Odaka), she’s far from impressed when he takes her to the cinema to see a grade-Z western, but as she begins seriously thinking about her options for the future, she finds herself looking back at the past...

This Nikkatsu production was based on a novel of the same name by Torahiko Tamiya (1911-88) originally published as a serial in a women’s magazine the year before. His work is unavailable in English, but also provided the basis for the previously-reviewed Love is Lost (1956) and Stepbrothers (1957) among other films. Featuring some voiceover narration from Ashikawa’s character, the film unfolds in a sometimes confusing flashback structure and wanders off into some subplots of dubious relevance. However, despite these flaws, the film turns out to be a surprisingly serious and thoughtful story of a young woman finding out who her parents really are – and, by extension, who she really is. It’s also very nicely-handled by director Eisuke Takizawa, who elicits good performances all round and also made the recently-reviewed picture The Samurai of Edo.

On a cultural note, there’s a scene in which Akiko visits a bar popular with students where they sing Russian folk songs in Japanese and all seem to know the words, an odd phenomenon also featured in the 1956 film Gyakukosen. Incidentally, although there’s a close-up of the poster for the film Hasuike takes Akiko to at the cinema, I was unable to identify it despite translating the text – was it such a low-budget piece of crap that it’s vanished without a trace or was it a fictional film that never existed in the first place?

Inoru hito is sometimes translated (incorrectly in my view) as ‘The Praying Man’, which I don’t think was ever an official English title. While the standard translation of inoru is ‘pray’, it can also be interpreted less literally as ‘hope’, while hito is genderless and can be read as ‘person’ / ‘people’ / ‘human(s)’, etc. As there's a scene in which Akiko is shown in a praying posture, it seems likely that the title refers to her, and there’s certainly no male character it could relate to. A better English title, then, might be ‘One Who Prays.’

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Film at Amazon Prime Video Japan

I’ll Cry Alone / 帯をとく夏子 / Obi o toku Natsuko (‘Natsuko Unties Her Obi’, 1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #235

Ayako Wakao

Eiji Funakoshi

Natsuko (Ayako Wakao) is a former hot spring geisha who has become the exclusive mistress of company president Sakuma (Eiji Funakoshi in unconvincing old man make-up). He’s under pressure from his sister Kanako (Yumeji Tsukioka) to marry Taeko (Noriko Hodaka) as it will be good for the company and, although he wants to continue seeing Natsuko on the side, Natsuko is not happy with the idea.

Yumeji Tsukioka

Kyoko Enami

A chance of a different future seems to present itself when Sakuma begins a liaison with unlikely window cleaner Sumiko (Kyoko Enami) and Natsuko runs into (literally) the teacher she had a crush on at school, Kenji (Mikijiro Hira). However, he’s now reduced to working as a garage mechanic and unable to keep her in the luxury to which she has become accustomed…

Mikijiro Hira

This Daiei production was based on the ‘Natsuko’ series of stories by Seiichi Funahashi* serialised in the literary magazine Shincho between 1952 and 1961. The first batch was published as a novel entitled Geisha Konatsu in 1952, and Toho had produced two films about Natsuko using that title in 1954/55 with Mariko Okada starring. Funahashi was also the author of the source material for Story of a Blind Woman (also 1965) and the two versions of Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950 and 1968). Unfortunately, as I felt was the case for those stories, this is another that’s unlikely to resonate much with viewers these days.

Although the film has a clear message in favour of female independence, coming as it does after we have watched Natsuko fawning over two undeserving men for most of the film, it feels tacked on almost as an afterthought. Considering the deeply-ingrained sexism of the society that Natsuko is forced to inhabit, a more hard-hitting approach would have been preferable, but the tone is fairly light here, with some scenes simply played for laughs (of which, admittedly, there are a couple). This half-heartedness is probably because the real reason for the film’s existence was simply to provide another vehicle for Ayako Wakao; at the time, much was made of the fact that she wore only kimono in this picture – but, of course, a different kimono for each scene.

Directed by veteran Shigeo Tanaka with the same competent indifference he brought to the earlier Wakao costume-change flick Tokyo Onigiri Girl (1961).

*Sometimes listed as Seiichi Funabashi, but I think that’s incorrect.

DVD at Amazon Japan

Thanks to A.K. and to Coralsundy for the English subtitles

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The Flesh is Weak / 美徳のよろめき / Bitoku no yoromeki (‘Faltering Virtue’, 1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #174

Yumeji Tsukioka

 

28-year-old Setsuko (Yumeji Tsukioka), a former member of the aristocracy, has come down in the world somewhat after the war and ended up marrying below her class to Ichiro (Rentaro Mikuni), whose uncouth table manners appal her. 

 

Rentaro Mikuni

 

Despite being a wife and mother, she’s unable to forget her first love, Tsuchiya (Ryoji Hayama), especially as she keeps running into him (small place, Tokyo!). When her mother dies, Tsuchiya attends the funeral and, while paying his respects, whispers in Setsuko’s ear that he will be waiting for her the following day at 3 pm at a shrine. They start seeing each other on the sly, but he seems like such a nice guy that she believes it will remain platonic and her conscience will be clear. However, he has a weird fixation with eating breakfast naked… 

 

Ryoji Hayama

 

When Setsuko’s best friend, Yoshiko (Chikako Miyagi) – who is cheating on her own husband – arranges an excuse for Setsuko and Tsuchiya to sneak off to a hotel in Izu together, Setsuko freaks out when her uncle turns up at the hotel with some golfing buddies, stretching this film’s coincidence quota to the limit. Furthermore, Tsuchiya starts having non-platonic thoughts and tries to act on them, but finds himself rebuffed by Setsuko, who feels that she must remain faithful to her husband and certainly doesn’t want to eat breakfast naked with anyone…

 

 

This Nikkatsu production was adapted by Kaneto Shindo from a newly-published bestselling novel by Yukio Mishima (yet to be translated into English, but available in Chinese and Italian). The opening narration by actor Masaya Takahashi goes on for over 10 minutes and betrays the film’s literary origins. However, while the ending is apparently close to that of the novel, what happens in between is quite different, and it appears that Mishima’s original had Setsuko carrying on an extended sexual affair with Tsuchiya which results in two pregnancies, both of which are aborted. They also eat breakfast naked together, but I guess you couldn’t show that in a film in 1957 (so why have them talk about it, you may well ask). Anyway, although Mishima himself did not regard the novel as one of his serious literary efforts, he was not impressed and wrote in his diary that he could not imagine a more stupid movie. 

 

 

It doesn’t help that Setsuko is a self-pitying snob who is unnecessarily stern to her good-humoured maid, making it hard to feel much sympathy for her. Nikkatsu’s biggest female star at the time, Yumeji Tsukioka, does as well as can be expected under the circumstances, but Rentaro Mikuni is wasted in a role with little substance and Ryoji Hayama fails to make much impression as Tsuchiya. 

 

Chikako Miyagi

 

Chikako Miyagi fares better as the cheerfully amoral and flashily-dressed Yoshiko, and it’s nice to see Koreya Senda – who had just played a rare leading role in director Ko Nakahira’s Temptation – pop up again here as Setsuko’s dad. 

 

Koreya Senda

Nakahira also seemed to have a fondness for his namesake, actor Ko Nishimura, who appeared in at least half a dozen of his films, including this one in which he has a small part as a blind masseur who sees things his client (Setsuko) can’t. If only Nakahira could have seen the defects in the script… 

 

Ko Nishimura

 

Thanks to A.K.

A Hole of My Own Making / 自分の穴の中で / Jibun no ana no nakade (1955)

 Obscure Japanese Film #134

Rentaro Mikuni, Mie Kitahara and Jukichi Uno

Tamiko (Mie Kitahara) is a young woman living at home with her stepmother, Nobuko (Yumeji Tsukioka), and her bedridden brother, Junjiro (Nobuo Kaneko). Tamiko’s parents are both deceased and she’s approaching the usual age for marriage, so candidates are being discussed. Her father had wanted her to marry Komatsu (Jukichi Uno), an easygoing nice guy who works in a munitions factory, but she’s not attracted to him. Tamiko prefers the more aggressive and ambitious Ihara (Rentaro Mikuni), a medical doctor who spends most of his time experimenting on animals when he’s not womanising. However, she mistakenly believes that Nobuko wants him for herself, and this becomes a major source of friction between the two women. Meanwhile, Junjiro – who has never got over the fact that his wife left him – is becoming increasingly obsessed with investing in stocks and shares…

Yumeji Tsukioka

 

This Nikkatsu production was based on an untranslated 1955 novel of the same name by the left-wing writer Tatsuzo Ishikawa (1905-85), whose work was also to provide the basis for several Satsuo Yamamoto films, including The Human Wall (1959). Ishikawa had actually been imprisoned by the Japanese authorities for a few months in 1938 as a result of his novel Soldiers Alive, which criticised the Japanese presence in China; he subsequently avoided such topics until after the war. A Hole of My Own Making was adapted for the screen by Yasutaro Yagi, who had written a number of scripts for this film’s director, Tomu Uchida, back in the 1930s, before Uchida disappeared into Manchuria for a decade or so. The fact that Uchida chose to work with these two writers and that the resulting film shows so little regard for commercial considerations (with the possible exception of its casting) leaves little doubt that it was a personal passion project and by no means a routine studio assignment. 

Nobuo Kaneko

 

Like Uchida’s previous film, Twilight Saloon, it also seems to be something of an allegory for post-war Japan, perhaps most obviously in the character of Junjiro, a disillusioned and broken man pursuing financial wealth for its own sake from his sickbed. However, despite the rich symbolism that can be found throughout, I’ve seldom seen a film which leaves it so much up to the audience to decide how to feel about the characters, especially in the case of Tamiko and Nobuko. Who exactly are we supposed to be rooting for here? It’s so unclear that it’s almost disorienting in comparison to the majority of movies, and it’s difficult even to be certain about which character is referred to in the title – a hole of whose own making? Initially, I thought it must have been referring to Komatsu, who is introduced at the beginning of the film sleeping in a drainage tunnel (?), but by the end I thought it made more sense referring to Tamiko… Anyway, I personally enjoyed the film’s ambiguity, though I can imagine that some might feel exasperated and lose patience. 

Mie Kitahara

 

Even more unconventional is the harpsichord score by Yasushi Akutagawa (son of Rashomon writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa!), which at times sounds like it's being played by a demented chimp. Weirdly, I kind of liked this too, and you certainly can’t accuse anyone of going for the obvious here. Talking of music, Nobuko and Ihara attend a koto concert around half an hour in, and the blind musician we see performing is quite something. He is Michio Miyagi (1894-1956), one of the all-time greats of traditional Japanese music.*

Michio Miyagi

 

The actors are all well cast and the performances solid all round. Mikuni dissects a live frog at one point, and doesn’t appear to have faked it – unsurprising as he was known for taking realism to extremes. The point was presumably to underline the character’s lack of feeling, but I have to say that I thought it was unnecessary. 

Mikuni with another unfortunate co-star

 

To return to the film’s use of metaphors, a new sports centre is being built outside Tamiko’s family home, and construction noises are audible in every daytime scene set in that location – clearly a deliberate if unusual choice, and one that I think was intended to suggest that the old way of life is coming to an end. As in the recently-reviewed film A Rainbow at Every Turn (1956), military jets fly over in several scenes, including right at the end, implying an uncertain future not just for Tamiko and what’s left of her family, but for the Japanese people as a whole. But Uchida never represents his characters in this film as simple victims of change – many of them are unlikeable and are pursuing selfish goals, and in various ways they bring their misfortunes on themselves. Perhaps the title refers to more than one of the characters after all, and of course it could be taken to refer to the Japanese nation as a whole, so A Hole of Our Own Making might have been a better fit.

*Despite his blindness, Miyagi also composed the score for a 1935 version of Princess Kaguya photographed by special effects whiz Eiji Tsuburaya. A shortened version (33 minutes instead of the original 75) was rediscovered in the UK in 2015. An excerpt can be viewed on YouTube here. 

Thanks to A.K.

For more on A Hole of My Own Making, click here. 

Hi no tori / 火の鳥 / Phoenix (1956)

 

Obscure Japanese Film #81

Yumeji Tsukioka and Tatsuya Nakadai

 

This Nikkatsu production stars Yumeji Tsukioka as Emi, a half-Japanese, half-British actress who belongs to a Shingeki theatre company (i.e. one specialising in performing Japanese translations of dramas by playwrights such as Shakespeare and Chekhov). The film opens with Emi learning that her British father has passed away suddenly. Despite being shocked and saddened, she manages to pull herself together and deliver a good performance in the evening. After the show, she’s approached by two men, a producer (Toru Abe) and director (Nobuo Kaneko) who work in the film industry and want to give her a screen test, but first she must seek permission from Tajima (Shin Date), the director of the theatre company with whom she is having an affair. On her way home, she meets her ex, Sugiyama (Tatsuya Mihashi), who disapproves of her career and wants to get back together, but she brushes him off. They have a bitter argument, after which she is escorted home by Toku (Shiro Osaka), a lighting technician at the theatre who has a crush on her, although she regards him only as a friend. At home, she is visited by Tajima, who gives his approval for her screen test the following day. 

Tsukioka with Shin Date

 

At the studio, she encounters a young actor, Keiichi (Tatsuya Nakadai), and feels a strong attraction to him which seems to be mutual. Later, at a birthday party for one of the studio’s stars (real-life star Mie Kitahara), she dances with Keiichi. This is noticed by the producer and director, who decide they make a good couple and cast them together in a film entitled Phoenix. Emi and Keiichi soon find themselves a hot topic in the gossip columns, but when the studio holds the first test screening of Phoenix, Keiichi is mysteriously absent. It turns out that he has been arrested for his part in a demonstration against the presence of American military bases in Japan. As Emi becomes more involved with Keiichi, she begins skipping rehearsals at her theatre company and her relationship with Tajima becomes increasingly tense. To add to her troubles, she discovers that Keiichi has been two-timing her with a young actress, Kazuko (Sanae Nakahara), who belongs to the same student theatre group as himself. 

 

I couldn’t help finding the content of this film rather inconsequential and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel about Emi or why I should particularly care. She is certainly not an entirely sympathetic character – she shirks her responsibility to the theatre and treats her older sister (Hisano Yamaoka) like a servant. But of course, it could be argued that this makes her more believable and interesting than the straightforwardly ‘good’ heroines typical at the time. 

A first edition copy of the original novel.

 

The film was based on a bestseller of the same name first published in 1953 and written by Sei Ito, a writer popular at the time, so that’s one reason for the film’s existence. The other is to provide a vehicle for Yumeji Tsukioka, a talented actress most likely to be familiar to viewers in the West from her roles in Hiroshima (1953) and The Eternal Breasts (1955). Tsukioka was Nikkatsu’s top female star at the time. The following year, she married the director of this picture, Umetsugu Inoue, a prolific filmmaker seemingly able to turn a deft hand to almost any given genre. He was also known as Umeji, making the couple Umeji and Yumeji. 

 

Today, Hi not tori is most likely to be of interest for providing Tatsuya Nakadai with his first substantial film role (it was Yumeji Tsukioka herself who suggested him for the part). Inoue gives him a fantastic entrance around 26 minutes in when Emi notices a casually confident Keiichi strolling past below her with his shirt off and looking up at her admiringly. In fact, it looks as if Nikkatsu’s intention was to introduce the 23-year-old Nakadai as a new sex symbol. However, in some of his later scenes, he’s a trifle awkward and his inexperience shows – perhaps that’s why it would be a few more films down the line before he made his true breakthrough with Black River (1957). Of course, Tsukioka and Nakadai are both playing characters rather like themselves, although it was actually Nakadai who had the Shingeki background. 

Hi no tori provides an interesting behind-the-scenes glimpse of the real Nikkatsu studios, and it’s probably those with a particular affection for Japanese films of this vintage who will appreciate this one the most, not to mention enjoy the uncredited cameos by Mie Kitahara, Frankie Sakai, Masumi Okada, Hiroyuki Nagato, Izumi Ashikawa and Rentaro Mikuni. 

NB. Nakadai later appeared in a 1978 film with the same title directed by Kon Ichikawa which has nothing whatever to do with this one. 

Watched without subtitles.