Izu no odoriko / 伊豆の踊子 (‘The Dancing Girl of Izu’, 1954)

 

Hibari Misora

 

This Shochiku production was the second film version of a famous short story by future Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972). First published in 1926, it's a semi-autobiographical piece based on a solitary walking trip he took as a student around the Izu Peninsula in the year 1918. Attracted to a young dancer who is part of a small group of travelling entertainers, the narrator (named Mizuhara in the film) contrives to fall in with them. The others are Eikichi, a man of 23 who is the leader; his 18-year-old wife Chiyoko; her mother; and Chiyoko’s 16-year-old sister, Yuriko.  The dancer, named Kaoru, is Chiyoko’s youngest sister. Although disconcerted to find that she is only 13 (he had judged her to be 15-16*), he finds himself deeply moved at the group’s friendliness towards him, and this greatly helps to mitigate his low self-esteem. 

 

Akira Ishihama

 

While the story is often characterised as one of unrequited youthful love, there’s more to it than that. Like Kawabata, the narrator/Mizuhara is an orphan with no close family left alive, and Kawabata is said to have been concerned as a young man that this fact may in some way warp his personality. Despite the extremely low status of travelling entertainers in Japanese society at the time, the family in the story are not unhappy and enjoy a warm relationship with one another. It’s clear that the narrator is pathetically grateful to be accepted – almost adopted – by these outcasts, and this aspect of the work is equally as important as the theme of young love. 

 

 

Even in its unabridged form, Kawabata’s story is not really long enough to sustain a feature-length film, so screenwriter Akira Fushimi expanded it, mainly by giving the family of entertainers a more detailed backstory, introducing a rival for Kaoru’s love and adding a minor sub-plot about a young boy pursuing Mizuhara from village to village to return some money he had dropped. Incidentally, it was Fushimi who had also written the screenplay for the first adaptation, a silent film made by Heinosuke Gosho in 1933. However, for this one he wrote a fresh script with a number of differences, the most notable being that the character of Eikichi is far more sympathetic in the second version, in which he is played by Akihiko Katayama. This is more faithful to Kawabata. 

 

Akihiko Katayama

 

The silent version had starred a 22-year-old Kinuyo Tanaka alongside the 26-year-old Den Ohinata, whereas this one stars 16-year-old Hibari Misora as Kaoru and 19-year-old Akira Ishihama as Mizuhara. Misora was best-known for her singing ability, but gets surprisingly few opportunities to sing here, while Ishihama will be familiar to many as the young samurai forced to commit seppuku with a bamboo sword in Harakiri (1962). Although these two actors are the right age for their characters, I felt that their acting abilities were a little too limited to really put across their feelings as described by Kawabata, but director Yoshitaro Nomura is also partly to blame for this. Compare the final scene on the boat with what Kawabata had written and you’ll probably see what I mean. Here’s what Kawabata wrote (as translated by J. Martin Holman):

I lay down, using my bag as a pillow. My head felt empty, and I had no sense of time. My tears spilled onto my bag. My cheeks were so cold I turned my bag over. There was a boy lying next to me. He was the son of a factory owner in Kawazu and was on his way to Tokyo to prepare to enter school. The sight of me in my First Upper School cap seemed to elicit his goodwill.

After we talked for a while, he asked, "Have you had a death in your family?"

"No, I just left someone."

I spoke meekly: I did not mind that he had seen me crying. I was not thinking about anything. I simply felt as though I were sleeping quietly, soothed and contented.

I was not aware that darkness had settled on the ocean, but now lights glimmered on the shores of Ajiro and Atami. My skin was chilled and my stomach empty. The boy took out some sushi wrapped in bamboo leaves. I ate his food, forgetting it belonged to someone else. Then I nestled inside his school coat. I felt a lovely hollow sensation, as if I could accept any sort of kindness and it would be only right. […]

The lamp in the cabin went out. The smell of the tide and the fresh fish loaded in the hold grew stronger. In the darkness, warmed by the boy beside me, I let my tears flow unrestrained. My head had become clear water, dripping away drop by drop. It was a sweet, pleasant feeling, as though nothing would remain.

 

But in the film, Ishihama can barely manage a single tear and Nomura decides to end it with a shot of Misora staring blankly at the water, followed by a shot of a single geta (wooden sandal) floating off. Personally, I felt that Nomura had rather missed the point of the ending and also not shot what he did as effectively as he could have – a shame, as other parts of the film are a good deal more impressive. 

 

After the success of his 1958 film Stakeout, Yoshitaro Nomura became best-known for his intelligent and twisty crime dramas, often based on Seicho Matsumoto stories, and films from this earlier stage in his career are not easy to see. The nature of the story meant that the bulk of it had to be shot on location, and this is something that Nomura seemed to relish. Despite his odd lack of focus (for the most part) on the emotions of the two main characters and the performances of the two leads, he was a talented filmmaker and this is most obvious in a sequence which occurs around 21 minutes in, contains no dialogue and lasts for just under three minutes. It simply features Mizuhara walking by himself during a heavy rain shower and pausing to take shelter in a doorway, through which he watches a baby crying alone until a boy (presumably the baby’s older brother) runs up and stares at him, at which point he hurries on. There’s a sense that even the crying baby is better off than Mizuhara because at least it has a big brother to look after it. This beautiful sequence does nothing to advance the plot but expresses Mizuhara’s loneliness perfectly without even requiring Ishihama to do much in the way of acting. Most of the film and this scene in particular are also helped by Chuji Kinoshita’s restrained score – one of his better ones, with the exception of his use of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at the end, which can’t help but feel corny. Anyway, despite my quibbles, this film is well worth seeking out and quite likely the best film version of the story to date. 

 

 

*Other sources may give different ages depending on which age system is used, and the two  translations of the story into English do not agree. The first, by Edward Seidensticker, appeared in 1954, was slightly abridged, and described Kaoru as being dressed and made-up to appear 15 or 16, but turning out to be only 13. The second translation, by J. Martin Holman, appeared in 1997, was unabridged, and described Kaoru as looking 17 or 18 but actually being 14. The discrepancy is due to the fact that Seidensticker used the standard system of counting age in the West, whereas Holman used the traditional Japanese system, which considered a person to be one year old at birth and for their age to increase by a year not on their birthday, but at the turning of the New Year. This system is no longer used in Japan.

Thanks to A.K.

She Came for Love / 女が愛して憎むとき / Onna ga aishite nikumu toki (‘When a Woman Loves and Hates’, 1963)

Obscure Japanese Film #138

Ayako Wakao

Toshiko (Ayako Wakao) is the madam of a bar in Osaka who tries to keep her private life private and claims not to have a lover. However, she is in fact having a secret affair with Ozeki (Jiro Tamiya), a concert promoter who specialises in booking American artists and dreams of bringing Elvis to Japan. Ozeki is married and reluctant to leave his wife (Tazuko Niki), as she can speak English, which is very helpful to his business. Toshiko is well aware of all this but is apparently satisfied with the arrangement. 

Jiro Tamiya and Ayako Wakao

 

Although Toshiko’s bar is successful and she is a popular hostess, problems begin to arise. Her despised ex-husband (Akihiko Katayama) reappears and keeps bugging her; one of her employees, Nobuko (Kyoko Enami), is being a bit too flirtatious with the customers; Ozeki is making some risky deals and getting in over his head; and her former boss and mentor, Rie (Mitsuko Mori), is unhappy with her because Toshiko’s cheap whisky is tempting customers away from Rie’s bar…

Kyoko Enami

 

At times watching this, I was reminded of Naruse’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), which is understandable as not only does this Daiei production cover similar territory, but it turns out that, like Naruse’s film, it also has an original screenplay by Ryuzo Kikushima (a frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa). The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven – something which is a major strong point of the script for me, and gives Wakao an excellent role which she plays to perfection. Toshiko undergoes a rather bitter inner journey and is not the same person at the end of the film that we met at the beginning. She Came for Love may well be a case of the script and cast being more important than the director, though the little-known Sokichi Tomimoto handles all aspects well. In any case, it’s a fine film which deserves to be better-known, and it should be a must for all fans of Ayako Wakao.

Mitsuko Mori

 

Although quite famous in her home country, Mitsuko Mori (who plays the important role of Rie so convincingly) is unlikely to be familiar to many non-Japanese viewers as she had a patchy film career, first appearing in 58 films between 1935 and 1941, most of which were undistinguished B-pictures. After a long hiatus from the big screen, she made two films in 1957, and then worked in films fairly steadily – mainly in supporting roles – from 1961 until the early 1970s. However, during most of her periods of absence from the cinema she was busy with radio, television and stage work. Her signature role was as author Fumiko Hayashi in the stage version of Hayashi’s autobiographical work, A Wanderer’s Notebook; she performed this over 2,000 times from 1961, although when Mikio Naruse filmed it the following year, it was Hideko Takamine who won the part. No surprise, then, that Mori never went on to make a film with Takamine, although Naruse subsequently employed her for a part in his final film, Scattered Clouds (1967). 

 Thanks to A.K., and to Coral Sundy for the subtitles, which can be found here. 

 DVD at Amazon Japan.

Dancing Girl / 舞姫 / Maihime (1951)

Obscure Japanese Film #74

Mariko Okada

  

Namiko (Mieko Takamine) is a ballet teacher married to university prof Yagi (So Yamamura). They have two grown children – Shinako (Mariko Okada), who aspires to be a ballet dancer like her mother, and her brother Takao (Akihiko Katayama). However, the marriage was an arranged one, and Namiko still has feelings for former sweetheart Takehara (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi), whom she still sees regularly, although their relationship is platonic. This puts an increasing strain on the marriage while Shinako and Takao look on uneasily. Meanwhile, Shinako’s disillusionment deepens when she finds herself powerless to help either Kayama – her former ballet teacher whose career has ended due to a war wound (Heihachiro Okawa) – or Tomoko (Reiko Otani), a fellow student reduced to working as a stripper in an effort to help her sick lover. 

Mieko Takamine and Hiroshi Nihonyanagi

 

This Toho production is based on a novel published the same year by Yasunari Kawabata, who in 1968 became the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The novel is not regarded as one of his major works and has yet to be translated into English (although there have been translations in German and Spanish) and it should be noted that Kawabata also wrote a famous story entitled The Dancing Girl of Izu, which is entirely unrelated to this one. The screenplay was written by Kaneto Shindo, who may be the most prolific screenwriter of all time with over 200 credits, but is best known as the director of Onibaba, Kuroneko and The Naked Island. He appears to have made a few changes to the original, some of which may be explained by the fact that films still had to be approved by the occupying Americans in 1951 (presumably not too difficult in this case as Dancing Girl promotes Western culture while also including some anti-war dialogue). The platonic nature of the relationship between Namiko and Takehara appears to have been the same in the original, but the Buddhist theme of the novel is largely absent and there is no mention of Takao’s flirtation with communism or Takehara being married. Unfortunately, Shindo chose to write a new scene in which Shinako visits her former ballet teacher on his deathbed – this scene is incredibly corny and easily the worst bit in the film. 

 

So Yamamura and Mieko Takamine

This sequence aside, director Mikio Naruse does a fine job, appropriately staging many scenes so that his characters have their backs to each other, which serves to emphasize their emotional distance. Ichiro Saito’s Western-style, string-laden score should perhaps have been used more sparingly, although it could be argued that it matches the maudlin tone of the film. The cast are solid across the board and it’s interesting to see Mariko Okada in her film debut even if she was obviously doubled for most of the ballet sequences. Okada would go on to rival Ayako Wakao as one of Japan’s top film actresses and, although her performance here may not quite have the subtlety of her later ones, she acquits herself pretty well in a major role that must have been daunting for an 18-year-old who had been signed as a ‘Toho New Face’ just 20 days before this film went into production.

Gero no kubi /下郎の首 /'Gero's Head' (1955)

Obscure Japanese Film #46

Michiko Saga and Jun Tazaki

 

Writer-director Daisuke Ito’s remake of his own 1927 film Gero (since lost) is a period drama (or jidaigeki) made for Shintoho.[1] Jun Tazaki stars as Geru, a manservant whose master (Minoru Takada) is killed as a result of an argument during a game of go. Geru was fishing with the master’s adult son, Shintaro (Akihiko Katayama), at the time of the incident. By the time they return, the unnamed killer (Eitaro Ozawa) has fled the scene, but they learn that he has nine moles on his face. Geru and Shintaro set off on a quest to find the murderer, but Shintaro falls ill and Geru is forced to become a busker, performing spear dances to support them both. 

Eitaro Ozawa

 

One day, sheltering from the rain outside a house, Geru is lent an umbrella by the inhabitant, Oichi (Michiko Saga, daughter of Isuzu Yamada and star of The Mad Fox), and a friendship develops when he comes to return it. Geru learns that Oichi is the concubine of a man named Sudo. During a later visit, Sudo unexpectedly returns and Geru is shocked to discover that he’s the man with nine moles on his face…

Jun Tazaki

 

In Japanese cinema history, Daisuke Ito – who made his first film in 1920 – is known as the father of the period drama, and there is no doubt that he was an innovative and hugely influential filmmaker. One of his few surviving silent films, Jirokichi the Rat (1931) remains impressive today. Geru no kubi is an extremely well-directed film in the way Ito stages his scenes, co-ordinates the actors, focuses on surprising details and uses dynamic crane and dolly shots combined with strong compositions and depth of field. Ito can be amazingly bold, too; in one scene during a voiceover, he fills the screen with a shot of a blank piece of paper and holds the shot for over two minutes! 

Akihiko Katayama

 

On the basis of this film and the other Ito works I’ve seen, in my opinion Ito’s weakness is that he sometimes either allows or encourages his actors to go over the top. There’s a running ‘gag’ here in which Gero’s legs go dead every time he has to kneel for a while, meaning that he’s unable to walk properly when he gets up. This clumsy slapstick is unfortunate in a film which is otherwise pretty sober in tone even if it lacks the depth to make it a true classic. However, the un-Hollywood like preference in Japanese cinema for a tragic ending is certainly well-catered to and comes after a grand climax in which we finally get a generous helping of chanbara (sword-fighting) action, albeit of the (presumably deliberately) clumsy variety.  

Koji Mitsui

 

Tetsuro Tanba

Also among the cast are the scene-stealing Koji Mitsui in a Lon Chaney-like role as a fake paraplegic beggar and Tetsuro Tanba as a passing samurai Geru and Shintaro manage to offend. The impressive cinematography is by Yoshimi Hirano, who also shot The Life of Oharu (1951). Jun Tazaki is decent enough in the lead, but a little lacking in star quality. However, the film's qualities far outweigh its flaws and Gero no kubi is a good example of why Daisuke Ito's work should be much better known than it is today.

Watched without subtitles.

Michiko Saga

 

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[1] The original was based on a story by one Tokichi Nakamura, who is for some reason uncredited on this version.