On This Earth / 地上 / Chijo (1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #150

Hitomi Nozoe and Hiroshi Kawaguchi

Kanazawa, central Japan, c.1920. Heiichiro (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) is a student who lives in a small first floor flat in the red light district with his widowed mother, Omitsu (Kinuyo Tanaka), who earns her living from needlework. Although once part of a wealthy family, they are now struggling to get by, and Heiichiro’s school fees are overdue. 

 

Kinuyo Tanaka

Kyoko Kagawa

One evening, a naïve country girl, Fuyuko (Kyoko Kagawa), is brought to the geisha brokerage downstairs by her uncle and sold. The broker (Kichijiro Ueda) intends to sell her on to a geisha house the next day, but not before he’s taken advantage of her himself. When he gets drunk and tries to rape Fuyuko, she flees the house and is taken in for the night by Omitsu. However, she has no choice but to return in the morning, when she is taken to the geisha house as planned and must prepare to learn her new trade. Omitsu is subsequently offered a job as a live-in seamstress at the same geisha house, so she and Heiichiro go to live there. Omitsu develops an affection for Heiichiro, but resigns herself to her fate, and is ordered by the head of the house (Kyu Sazanka) to sleep with local bigwig Amano (Shin Saburi). 

Kyu Sazanka

 

Shin Saburi

Meanwhile, Heiichiro has a chance meeting with his former childhood sweetheart, Wakako (Hitomi Nozoe), and he falls in love when he sees her in a ridiculous Bo Peep bonnet and dress. She’s the daughter of a wealthy factory owner whose employees go on strike. One of these employees is a friend of Heiichiro’s, which leads to him being suspected of helping the strikers. Despite the efforts of a sympathetic teacher (Kinzo Shin), Heiichiro finds himself expelled from school by the headmaster (Eitaro Ozawa) …

Hitomi Nozoe

 

Eitaro Ozawa

On This Earth was adapted by Kaneto Shindo based on the first part of a long four-part autobiographical novel by Seijiro Shimada (1899-1930), whose life is closely reflected in the character of Heiichiro. Shimada was apparently something of an angry young man, and after his book was a huge success he was said to have become unbearably arrogant, which led to his early supporters dropping away and his success being a short-lived one. Shimada’s dissatisfaction with the state of the world and socialist beliefs are evident in the film – Shindo and director Kozaburo Yoshimura portray a society in which the vast majority accept its inherent injustice unquestioningly because the exploitative economic eco-system in which they must survive is so inflexible. If – like Heiichiro’s uncle (Taiji Tonoyama), who is in a position to help  due to his job working for the council, but refuses to stick his neck out – they are lucky enough to have found themselves a niche, they dare not risk losing it. The filmmakers are obviously in sympathy with Shimada on this point, and make it pretty clear how they feel – for instance, a scene in which a female striker is dragged off screaming by the police cuts abruptly to a shot of fat cat Saburi enjoying himself in a geisha house. 

Taiji Tonoyama

 

Where the film is less successful is in the way that every female character in the film seems to conclude that Heiichiro is the best thing since sliced bread within a few seconds of meeting him. In fact, the character is mysteriously held in such high esteem by everyone that even Wakako’s brother (Keizo Kawasaki) encourages her love affair with Heiichiro against their parents’ wishes, and Fukai (Yosuke Irie), a mutual friend of Heiichiro and Wakako, who might have been expected to have feelings for Wakako himself, is only too willing to act as a go-between. It could well be that this assumed acceptance that Heiichiro is special without any apparent justification is also a weakness in the novel, which would make sense given Shimada’s reputation for arrogance, but in any case, I felt that it worked against the film. 

Kyoko Kagawa and Kinuyo Tanaka

 

On This Earth benefits from a strong cast, but the story is nothing special and the cliché count is high. The main reason it remains worth watching in my opinion is the cinematography – the film was shot (much of it on location) using Daiei’s own colour process and was one of their last using the old academy ratio format, but it looks rather wonderfully like a moving painting. 

 

Bonus trivia: This was the second film (after Masumura’s The Kiss) out of 21 to co-star Hiroshi Kawaguchi and Hitomi Nozoe. They married in 1960 and remained together until his death in 1987. 

DVD at Amazon Japan.  

Thanks to kagetsuhisoka for the English subtitles, which can be found here. 

Additional thanks to A.K.

The Makioka Sisters / 細雪 / Sasameyuki (‘Light Snowfall’, 1959)

Obscure Japanese Film #148

Junko Kano and Fujiko Yamamoto

Junichiro Tanizaki’s novel Sasameyuki is widely recognised as a classic of Japanese literature. Translated into English as The Makioka Sisters in 1957 by Edward G Seidensticker, it has remained constantly in print ever since. The book was originally published in serial form beginning in 1943, but this was soon halted by the Japanese War Ministry – not because it criticised the government, but because, according to them at the time, ‘The novel goes on and on detailing the very thing we are most supposed to be on our guard against during this period of wartime emergency: the soft, effeminate, and grossly individualistic lives of women.’* I would have thought they should have been more worried about the enemy, but in any case, Tanizaki was forced to wait until the war had ended to resume publication, with the final instalment appearing in 1948.

 

Yukiko Todoroki

 

The story itself takes place between 1936 and 1941, ending around eight months before the attack on Pearl Harbour, and it seems that Tanizaki’s intention was partly to provide a record of a way of life he had seen rapidly vanishing before his eyes. The Makioka sisters are four adult siblings whose parents are no longer alive. Once a grand family, their fortunes are on the wane but they remain very well-to-do in comparison with most Japanese and keep a number of servants. The eldest, Tsuruko (played here by Yukiko Todoroki), lives apart from the others with her husband and children in what is referred to as the ‘main house.’ She is a peripheral character, but, as the senior surviving member of the family, the other sisters must defer to her and her husband before making any important decisions. Tsuruko later goes to live in Tokyo when her husband has to relocate for his job, but her sisters remain in their hometown of Osaka.

 

Machiko Kyo and Fujiko Yamamoto

The other three sisters live together. In order of age, they are Sachiko (Machiko Kyo), Yukiko (Fujiko Yamamoto) and Taeko, familiarly called ‘Koi-san’ (Junko Kano). Sachiko is married to Teinosuke (Kyu Sazanka), with whom she has one child, Etsuko (Takako Shima). Although Sachiko is held responsible for her two younger sisters by the main house, little of the drama revolves around her. Instead, much of it concerns the attempts to find a husband for Yukiko, whose shy and sometimes stubborn nature makes this difficult. Ever since her original fiancée was killed in an accident, each marriage proposal has come to naught for one reason or another, and Yukiko is already approaching 30 when the story begins. Complicating matters further is the fact that Taeko must wait until Yukiko is married before getting married herself in order not to humiliate Yukiko and leave her looking like an old maid that nobody wants. Taeko is the closest thing to a rebel in the family, generally doing as she likes and indulged by her older sisters, who make allowances for her due to the fact that their parents died when she was so young. Even so, her disregard of the rules only goes so far and she avoids direct confrontation. 

 

Junko Kano

 

The sisters are likeable characters who live their lives trapped in a web of etiquette. Overly-concerned with what others think, they are unable to make a move without first ensuring that what they do will not offend anyone else or damage their own social status, but there’s little in the way of arrogance about them. Rather, they are simply behaving according to the rules by which they were brought up and it doesn’t even occur to them to do otherwise. In the book, Tanizaki paints a minutely-detailed picture of their lives, but never tells us what to think about it. The future of the family is left open at the end, but it’s impossible to be unaware of the dark cloud of war that awaits them just over the horizon, and no doubt Tanizaki planned it that way. 

 

The first film version appeared in 1950, directed by the forgotten Yutaka Abe, but notably starring Hideko Takamine as Taeko. When Koji Shima came to direct this remake for Daiei, Tanizaki was still alive (aged 74), and permission was sought from him to update the story to the present day, which he granted. I doubt whether this was to save money as the Japanese film industry seemed to have plenty to throw around in 1959, so I suspect the idea was to broaden the appeal to the modern audience. The story transfers with surprising ease to the Japan of the late ‘50s, but of course the feeling of watching a vanishing way of life is mostly lost. 

 

The wisdom of attempting to condense a novel which comes in at 530 pages (in its English translation) into a film running an hour and 45 minutes is also open to question. This episodic kind of material is probably better-suited to television and, in fact, there have been six different versions made for Japanese TV over the years. These misgivings aside, screenwriter Toshio Yasumi does a creditable job under the circumstances, choosing to concentrate less on the attempts to arrange a marriage for Yukiko and instead focus on the events revolving around Taeko, which are somewhat more dramatic. 

 

 

One of the best things about this film is the casting – all of the main actors are well-suited to their roles and are talented enough to make them feel like real people. It also looks a treat, with some interesting lighting choices including director Koji Shima’s trademark orange glow of sunset in several scenes, while the music – at least once the main credits are over – is restrained and tasteful. Cinematographer Joji Ohara and composer Seitaro Omori were both regular collaborators of the director. Shima had a fondness for storms as well as sunsets, which is just as well as the book contains a dramatic storm sequence which he pulls off nicely here. He also shows great skill at co-ordinating his actors, who perform all sorts of little bits of business during their dialogue scenes with great naturalism. Along with films such as The Beloved Image and A Rainbow at Every Turn, The Makioka Sisters provides further proof that Koji Shima was not simply a hack who made Warning from Space and The Phantom Horse, but was also a true artist when he wanted to be.  

 

 

Bonus trivia: After 20 years of being blacklisted, Fujiko Yamamoto (who plays Yukiko here) was invited back to the big screen by Kon Ichikawa to play Tsuruko in his 1983 remake. After thinking about it for six months, she said no and decided to stick with her stage work.

 

 *Rubin, Jay. Injurious to Public Morals: Writers and the Meiji State. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984. P.264.

Blu-ray at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles). This comes with a bonus DVD of a rare early Machiko Kyo film apparently, but I haven't been able to determine the title.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles).

Thanks to A.K.

The Precipice / 氷壁 / Hyoheki (1958)

Obscure Japanese Film #119

Kenji Sugawara

When salaryman Uoza (Kenji Sugawara) returns from a mountaineering trip and encounters his friend and former climbing partner Kosaka (Keizo Kawasaki) in a restaurant, he’s astonished to find that Kosaka is there to meet a married woman, Minako (Fujiko Yamamoto). 

 

Keizo Kawasaki and Fujiko Yamamoto

Feeling awkward, Uoza makes his excuses and leaves, but Minako catches up with him outside and asks if she can speak to him. Uoza learns that the relationship between Kosaka and Minako has been going on for a while although they’ve only slept together once. She regards the event as a moment of madness on her part and has been trying to break if off, but Kosaka has fallen head over heels for her and won’t accept this, so Minako wants to enlist Uoza’s help in order to make Kosaka see sense. Minako’s anxiety may also be partly due to the fact that her older husband, Yashiro (Ken Uehara with white hair), is a man not easily deceived.

Ken Uehara

 

Uoza decides to take Kosaka with him on his next trip to the mountains, where they attempt a difficult climb which Uoza hopes will take his friend’s mind off his emotional troubles. He also takes the opportunity to try and talk some sense into Kosaka, who finally seems to be resigning himself to a life without Minako. However, when they continue the last stage of their climb, Kosaka’s supposedly unbreakable nylon rope breaks and Uoza can only watch in horror as his friend falls down the mountainside…

 

Yasuzo Masumura’s fourth film as director covers similar territory to his better-known picture A Wife Confesses (1961). Kaneto Shindo’s screenplay was based on a novel published the previous year by the prolific Yasushi Inoue, who would go on to become one of Japan’s most respected authors but had yet to acquire that status. At the time, Inoue’s story was a topical one as he had based it on a couple of recent mountain accidents involving a new type of nylon rope. 

 

In the lead, actor Kenji Sugawara is a little on the stolid side, but was probably selected as much for his physical toughness – he was a 3rd dan in judo – as his acting ability. The film’s location photography is impressive and it certainly appears as if at least some of the climbing sequences were shot on location at Mount Hotaka in challenging conditions. 

Hitomi Nozoe

 

In the latter half of the film, Hitomi Nozoe has an important part as Kosaka’s sister. Any appearance by Nozoe is welcome in my view as she was an underrated actor, and her brilliant comic performance in Masumura’s Giants and Toys made that movie (and as we can see here, there was nothing wrong with her teeth!). Another actor who makes an impression is Kyu Sazanka, who uses every trick in the book to steal all of his scenes as Uoza’s boss. 

Kyu Sazanka

 

The Precipice was shot in Daiei’s briefly-adopted VistaVision process, with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, so it’s a little unusual in that respect as it was the 2.35:1 format that rapidly became standard in Japan around this time, replacing the old academy ratio of 1.33:1. Masumura and his cameraman Hiroshi Murai (who later shot Sword of Doom) use the VistaVision format to good effect here, pinning the characters down with clever blocking of scenes, with the camera closely following their every movement, and managing to squeeze in two or even three of the main characters at once when appropriate. 

 

The plot has its flaws, with one unlikely coincidence feeling especially unnecessary, but it’s such a well-made film that it remains worth watching, and the moving music by Akira Ifukube is a major asset. Inoue's story has proved a popular one in Japan and been remade for TV on a number of occasions.

Note on the title: The Japanese title translates as ‘Ice Wall’.

 Thanks to Coralsundy for the English subtitles, which can be found here.