Shunsetsu / 春雪 / (‘Spring Snow’, 1950)

Obscure Japanese Film #164

Yasuko Fujita

 

Takako (Yasuko Fujita) is a young woman who works on the ticket desk at her local train station in Denenchofu on the outskirts of Tokyo. The eldest child of a father (Takashi Shimura) who has been made redundant - though he doesn’t tell his family for a month - she hopes to wed train driver Toshio (Shuji Sano), but they cannot yet afford to marry. Not only are the family are struggling to get by, but Takako’s mother (Yuriko Hanabusa) is unwell and her younger brother (Teiji Takahashi) has started hanging out with a bad crowd. But when Takako’s younger sister Tomoko (Akiko Sawamura) finds work as a maid to a wealthy orchestra conductor (Ichiro Ryuzaki) who takes a shine to Takako, it looks like the family’s problems could be solved if she would only forget Toshio and marry him instead…

Takashi Shimura

 

Shuji Sano

 

Teiji Takahashi

Akiko Sawamura

This Shochiku production is unrelated to the later Yukio Mishima novel which shares its English title and was written as an original screenplay by Kaneto Shindo, one of around 40 he wrote for the director of this film, Kozaburo Yoshimura. I don’t remember the war itself being mentioned, but the poverty of the post-war years is emphasized throughout, and the family even try to grow vegetables in their garden to save a few yen. They tend to put up a  cheerful front when together, but often fall into depression on their own. We see Takiko riding a train and staring at the tracks as it speeds along as if seeing her life laid out before her in a straight line leading to nowhere, while her father eats his packed lunch in the ruins of the steelworks where he used to be employed and which was, presumably, demolished due to the war ending. Typically for Japanese drama, the story revolves around a classic giri (obligation) versus ninjo (inclination) conflict – in this case, if Takako marries the rich guy, her family will be saved. As it was made during the American occupation, however, the film also promotes western culture and values, and on one occasion we see Takako attending a ballet, while on another she and Toshio are seen sitting outside a Christian church where a wedding is taking place and admiring the sound of the choir singing a hymn within. 

 

Yasuko Fujita

The star of this film, Yasuko Fujita, was a theatre actress who had been hand-picked by Yoshimura to play the lead role despite never having appeared in a film before. It’s an impressive debut, and she not only looks the part, but acts it in such a way that she seems like a natural for the movies, betraying not even a hint of theatricality in her performance. Unfortunately for the Japanese cinema, she married a well-known music promoter in 1953 and retired from acting having made a dozen films, the most widely-seen of which is probably Yoshimura’s Clothes of Deception (1951), in which she co-starred opposite Machiko Kyo. Her Japanese Wikipedia page contains the enigmatic comment that ‘She reportedly made the most of her good looks when interacting with foreign celebrities.’ Yasuko Fujita passed away in 2015 aged 88.

Among the rest of the cast, the most notable is Takashi Shimura, and it’s nice to see that he’s not totally wasted here as he was so often when not working with Kurosawa. In Spring Snow, he gets to play a character with more than one dimension who goes through his own struggle against both himself and his circumstances. 

 

Although I wouldn’t go as far as to claim it as any kind of forgotten masterpiece, Spring Snow has quite a lot going for it, including the cinematography of Toshio Ubukata (who also worked for Kurosawa) and the mostly well-developed characters, who feel worth spending time with.

Thanks to A.K.

Why Did These Women Become Like This? / 何故彼女等はそうなったか / Naze kanojora wa so natta ka (aka Girls’ Reform School, 1956)

Obscure Japanese Film #163

Kyoko Kagawa and Masako Nakamura

This social conscience picture from Shintoho studios stars Kyoko Kagawa as Miss Oda, a kindly teacher at a reform school for wayward teenage girls that stands in the shadow of a castle. Among the girls are Hiroko (Masako Nakamura), a new arrival who comes from a wealthy family but has begun behaving badly after discovering that she was an illegitimate child; Yoneko (Akiko Mie), who is secretly pregnant; Tomiko (Konomi Fuji), whose good behaviour at the school sees her sent back home only to receive a cold reception from her stepmother (Wakako Kunimoto), causing her to run away again and end up back at the reformatory; and Chiyo (Junko Ikeuchi), who is in danger of being sold into prostitution to a brothel-keeper (Chieko Naniwa, who I’m sure has played this type of role in a number of films).

Chieko Naniwa

 

Somewhat surprisingly, the film was based on a 1952 novel by a male author, Toshihiko Takeda 1891-1961). However, he had some experience in these matters, having co-founded the Association for the Improvement of Children in 1947 and established an actual ‘Girls’ Home’ in 1949 in Muragame on the northern tip of Shikoku island. (Incidentally, Muragame does have a castle, although I’m uncertain if it’s the one we see in the film.)

 

Kyoko Kagawa

The supposed bad behaviour of the girls seems pretty mild today – this is not exactly a female Scum – but, then, writer-director Hiroshi Shimizu clearly wants us to view them with unreserved sympathy. The real bad behaviour is on the part of the uncaring parents, etc, who made them this way, and the unforgiving, self-righteous communities who deny them a second chance. The Japanese aphorism deri kugi wa utareru (‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered down’) springs to mind here. 

 

Akiko Mie

The film certainly gets its message cross, but feels like fairly minor Shimizu. The religious-sounding choral music which sounds as if it has come from a corny Hollywood Christmas movie has not dated well, and the film misses a trick in failing to provide Miss Oda with any backstory, though Kyoko Kagawa gives her usual fine performance in a role similar to that which she played in the later picture The Human Wall (1959). The acting is pretty good across the board, in fact, though of the young actresses who play the girls only Junko Ikeuchi went on to stardom and sustained a long career.

Shimizu incorporates some symbolism into the film - the castle walls which form a backdrop for the opening credits suggest a safe place where the inhabitants are protected from the hostile world outside, while the girls' employment involves painting Okame masks, which represent a woman who brings good fortune to the man she marries. This is, of course, apt as the young women here are clearly hoping to emerge from the establishment with a more positive identity. 

Junko Ikeuchi and Masako Nakamura

 

Thanks to A.K.