Obscure Japanese Film #227
1949. Teenage orphan Hamako (Sumiko Hasegawa) arrives at a grand residence at Shinobazu Pond in Ueno, Tokyo, to serve as maid to the aristocratic Madame Yuki (Yoshiko Sakuma), whose father, a former viscount, has just died. Various relatives and opportunistic acquaintances flock to the scene like vultures hoping to secure a piece of the carcass for themselves. Among them are Yuki’s husband, Naoyuki (Isao Yamagata), who spends most of his time in Kyoto with his mistress, Ayako (Yuko Hama). However, it turns out that Yuki’s father has left nothing but debts, so the house is sold and the family’s other home in snowy Nagano is turned into an inn. Meanwhile, Yuki has been having an affair with Kikunaka (Tetsuro Tanba), a married writer, but even though she detests her own husband, he retains a mysterious sexual hold over her from which she seems unable to break free...
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| Isao Yamagata |
Although the official English title of this film chooses ‘Picture’ over ‘Portrait’, it is, of course, based on the same novel as the better-known Kenji Mizoguchi film of 1950. The novel, by Seiichi Funahashi* (1904-76), first appeared in serial form between 1948-1950 and remains untranslated into English. To be frank, I can’t stand the story in either film version. One reason is the portrayal of unquestioning devotion, even idolatry, of a servant for her mistress, which seems to give tacit approval to the class system. Although Hamako becomes disillusioned with her mistress and Funahashi may have been trying to make a broader point about the disillusionment of the younger generation in the post-war years regarding the ruling class, the problem is that Yuki is presented as someone to be pitied and, if not deserving of the elevated status she enjoyed, it’s only because of her lack of courage. Indeed, while her self-pitying, acquiescent victimhood is irritating, she’s still painted as a tragic heroine. It also doesn’t help that the bad behaviour of the villains of the piece – the cruel husband and his predictably cheap and vulgar mistress – is so blatant that it’s never convincing.
At heart, the story is an old-fashioned melodrama, and, while the writer-director of this version, Masashige Narusawa – who had been a screenwriter for Mizoguchi on four of the latter’s final films – has for the most part clearly tried to downplay this as much as possible, still it is what it is. He certainly made a very different film to his mentor’s and was, reportedly, more faithful to the original novel. However, well-photographed though it is, it lacks the often inspired camera placement and composition found in the original, and so is not really an improvement overall, only in certain aspects. Transferring the bulk of the story to a snowy location (yuki means snow in Japanese) was a good idea, but it’s those crane shots with the rolling mist by the lake at the end of Mizoguchi’s film that linger in my mind.
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| Tetsuro Tanba |
Compared to the wimpy character portrayed by Ken Uehara in 1950, Tetsuro Tanba is a much more commanding, masculine presence, yet none of the performances in either film are especially notable, perhaps because Funahashi – who also wrote the source novel for The Story of a Blind Woman – failed to put much life into them in the first place. Still, it’s a shame that this proved to be the final film directed by Narusawa as he clearly had talent, even if it’s less evident here than in his previous two pictures.
Produced by Toei, who had been pushing Yoshiko Sakuma as a star of literary erotica since their 1963 film of Tsutomu Mizukami’s Gobancho Yugiri-ro (aka A House in the Quarter), this version was shelved and not released until it was bought by Nikkatsu in 1975.
*Sometimes listed as Funabashi, but I think that’s incorrect.
Thanks to Coralsundy for the subtitles, which can be found here.
Thanks to A.K.
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