Obscure Japanese Film #139
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| Junko Ikeuchi |
Chikako (Junko Ikeuchi) is a geisha who works under the name of Temari. Such an occupation gives her a very low social status, but she has managed to retain her self-respect, restricting herself to entertaining her customers and not sleeping with them as some do. However, though she never allows herself to indulge in self-pity, Chikako is not entirely satisfied with her lot and wants to become less dependent on the whims of men. As she always receives compliments for the miso soup she makes based on her grandmother’s recipe, she decides to start a small business selling the soup and accompaniments from a mobile van.
Kei Sato
Kunie Tanaka
Attending a class reunion, she reconnects with some old school friends: Murata (Kei Sato), a self-confident and apparently successful businessman; Ogawa (Kunei Tanaka), who makes a modest living carrying on his father’s occupation of making geta (traditional wooden sandals); and Kazuyo (Etsuko Ichihara), who has four children and another on the way and is forced to supplement her husband’s income by trying to sell life insurance on commission.
Keizo Kawasaki
Murata and Ogawa both seem keen to be more than just friends with Chikako, but she’s more interested in Kiritani (Keizo Kawasaki), a salaryman she meets while working. However, this is a world in which even the nice guys shouldn’t be entirely trusted…
Aiko Nagayama
Another incident which complicates Chikako’s life is the unexpected arrival of a half-brother she didn’t know she had, Tomoichiro (Masakazu Tamura), who is studying to be a doctor. Chikako’s young friend and colleague Komomo (Aiko Nagayama) falls in love with him, but when Tomoichiro and Komomo begin talking of marriage, Chikako finds herself reacting with resentment at the idea of her brother marrying a lowly geisha. Having suffered from spending her own life in a society where the most important thing is what other people think of you, her kneejerk reaction is hypocritical, but – to her credit – she comes to realise this.
This Tokyo Eiga production was based on a 1965 novel by Yumie Hiraiwa which had already been successfully adapted for TV in a version which also starred Junko Ikeuchi and Aiko Nagayama in the same roles. Although Women and Miso Soup is the sort of character-driven comedy-drama that had largely disappeared from the big screen in Japan by 1968, and is also the last live-action feature film* by director Heinosuke Gosho (then 65), surprisingly it doesn’t feel like an 'old man’s movie' at all. Admittedly, there is one character, Ogawa’s father (Eijiro Tono), who complains about the ‘youth of today’ at some length but, while he may have a point in some of the things he says, he’s basically portrayed as a grumpy old git. In regard to the younger generation, Komomo and Chikako’s other young female friend, Kikuko (Akemi Kita), may initially seem vacuous, but the film softens its attitude towards them as it progresses. A scene which occurs late in the film has them dancing to rock music from a transistor radio at the beach as Chikako looks on and smiles approvingly, implying that this is a perfectly valid way to enjoy their time. While the film certainly celebrates the traditional aspects of Japanese life, other scenes show that the young are perfectly capable of appreciating these too if given the chance.
Headed by Beast Alley’s Junko Ikeuchi and filled out mainly by members of the Haiyuza theatre company, the cast give strong performances all round and make the most of an intelligent script in which, refreshingly, scenes do not always play out in the way one might expect (e.g. the confrontation scene between Chikako and a certain character’s wife). And while this may not be a film to wow you with its camerawork particularly, Gosho’s co-ordination of his actors is impressive and shows that he still had a sure hand.
*Gosho made an animated feature film using puppets shortly after this one and later a half-hour documentary before passing away in 1981.