Obscure Japanese Film #99
Chijin no ai is the earliest film version of the well-known novel of the same name by one of Japan’s most acclaimed writers, Junichiro Tanizaki. First published in 1925, it’s a first-person narrative in which Joji, a salaryman with a well-paid management position, relates the story of his obsession with Naomi, whom he first meets at a café in Asakusa where she works as a waitress. Naomi is only 15 at the time, but the 28-year-old Joji’s respectability enables him to make a deal with her mother whereby he will take her in and pay for her education. He promises not to seek sexual favours from Naomi until she is older and she consents, at which point he will marry her if she agrees. In the meantime, he plans to mould her into his ideal woman. However, this proves to be more difficult than he had bargained for due to Naomi’s wilful and uncooperative behaviour. She soon has Joji wrapped around her little finger, and he remains infatuated despite the humiliations she causes him.
Jukichi Uno
Chijin no ai is often understandably compared to Nabokov’s Lolita, but pre-dates it by 30 years. The similarities between the two appear to be entirely coincidental as Tanizaki’s novel was not translated until 1985, when it appeared in English under the title Naomi. This film version from Daiei studios updates the story to contemporary post-war Japan and begins with Joji (Jukichi Uno) and Naomi (Machiko Kyo) already living together. As Machiko Kyo was already 25 at this point, the age difference between the two characters is much less pronounced than in the book.
Machiko Kyo
This was already Kyo’s fifth picture since being signed as a ‘new face’ by Daei the same year; even before that, she had built up years of stage experience as a member of the Osaka Shochiku Girls’ Opera Company, which she had joined in 1936 at the age of 12. As a member of that company, she had also appeared in two Shochiku films, Tengu daoshi and Danjuro Mitsuyo (both 1944), the latter of which was directed by none other than Kenji Mizoguchi (and is presumably lost as there seems to be very little information about it online). Although the part of Naomi was not Kyo’s first leading role in a film, in the light of its prestigious literary origin it seems fair to say that it was her first really important one. In any case, the confidence with which this apparent newcomer performs the role is perhaps not so surprising given that she had already been performing for 13 years by the time the film was made.
Machiko Kyo (right) in Tengu daoshi
The director, Keigo Kimura (1903-86) appears to have played a significant part in Kyo’s career. Not only did he choose her to play Naomi, but he had already directed her once previously and would go on to make a total of 10 films with her, including the previously-reviewed Life of a Horse Trader. He would also remake A Fool’s Love in 1960 with Eiji Funakoshi, and Junko Kano as Naomi, and his reasons for doing so were not merely to repeat an earlier success.
DVD cover for the 1960 remake
In the original novel, one of the attractions for Joji in pursuing Naomi is that she has a somewhat Western appearance – in fact, he thinks she resembles Mary Pickford! Furthermore, Naomi is, of course, also a female given name in English-speaking countries, and Joji pays for her to have English lessons. While I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that Naomi is simply a metaphor representing Western values, it’s certainly the case that Tanizaki was commenting on the way many Japanese were embracing Western culture at the time, sometimes at the expense of their own. At the end of the book, Joji is completely dominated by Naomi and becomes her willing slave, whereas at the end of the 1949 film, Naomi recognises the error of her ways and submits to Joji, promising to be a good girl from now on. As the film was made during the American occupation, there was no way the authorities were going to approve a film which could be interpreted as a warning about American domination. For this reason – and also because the age difference is much less of an issue than in the book – Keigo Kimura’s first attempt at filming Tanizaki’s novel is considerably compromised. Although I’ve yet to see his later version, I understand that it is indeed more faithful to the book, especially in regard to the ending.
Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyo
This first version is a little slow at times, with not much sense of pacing, but there are some interesting sequences, such as the montage in which we see the gradual deterioration of Naomi’s stockings reflecting the change in her circumstances after she leaves Joji. The main interest of the film today is likely to be the chance to see Kyo in an early leading role, but Jukichi Uno also gives a good account of himself as do Masayuki Mori and Koji Mitsui as Naomi’s male friends-from-hell, a couple of pleasure-seeking parasites who abandon her as soon she’s down on her luck.
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| Koji Mitsui and Masayuki Mori |
Two further film versions were made: Yasuzo Masumura’s 1967 film* starring Shoichi Ozawa and Michiyo Yasuda, which is more of a comedy, and a semi-porn version made in 1980 under the title Naomi and starring Makoto Saito and Yuki Mizuhara.
Intriguingly, the 1934 film version of Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage is also known as Chijin no ai in Japanese, and Maugham’s story of a young medical student’s disastrous infatuation with a waitress has many similarities with Tanizaki’s work.
*Often referred to under the poorly-translated title Love for an Idiot in English (A Fool’s Love makes much more sense as it’s Joji who is the fool in Tanazaki’s story, not Naomi).
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