Shirobamba / しろばんば (1962)

Obscure Japanese Film #248

Toru Shimamura

This Nikkatsu production was based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by one of Japan’s major writers, Yasushi Inoue (1907-91). The book was translated into English by Jean Oda Moy in 1991, but Inoue’s sequel, Zoku Shirobamba, has been neither filmed nor translated, and the fact that Nikkatsu never made the sequel suggests that this film was not especially profitable. The story concerns Inoue’s own childhood in Izu in the early Taisho period (1912-26) when Inoue was around seven years old, and the title refers to the white aphids that the children would try to catch in the autumn.

Izumi Ashikawa

Inoue’s alter ego is Kosaku (played here by Toru [later Miki] Shimamura), whose rural upbringing is unusual in that his parents, though living, are absent, and he’s brought up by his late great-great uncle’s mistress, known as Granny Onui (Tanie Kitabayashi). He’s all she’s got, so she spoils him, and he’s very attached to her as a result. The only other person he really likes is Sakiko (Izumi Ashikawa), whom he calls his elder sister although she’s actually his aunt. Unfortunately, she looks down on Onui and there’s no love lost between the two women. Sakiko lives in the ‘Upper House’ nearby with Kosaku’s other relations, but he feels uncomfortable there and avoids them. Kosaku gets the highest grades in his year at school and his family has a higher social status than his classmates’, so he feels different to the other boys and great things are expected of him.

Jacket of the novel in English translation

Reading the novel in translation a while ago I was reminded of the films of Keisuke Kinoshita and wondered if the book had ever been filmed; looking it up, I found that not only had it been, but that the screenwriter was none other than Keisuke Kinoshita himself. However, it’s directed not by him, but by Eisuke Takizawa, who seems to have been Nikkatsu’s director of choice for their more prestigious literary adaptations during this period (not a genre they’re widely remembered for).

Jukichi Uno

I had high hopes for this film but, although its superficially faithful, one of the strengths of the book is its lack of sentimentality, and it was disappointing to see the story sentimentalised as it has been here, especially in regard to composer Takanobu Saito’s clichéd use of mandolin and harp. There’s also been an overall softening of tone – to give a couple of examples, in the book, the schoolteachers think nothing of dishing out corporal punishment, and Sakiko is an arrogant snob, while here the teachers (one of whom is played by a twinkly-eyed Jukichi Uno in old man make-up) are far more genial and Sakiko – perhaps partly due to the casting of popular star Ishikawa – is a much gentler character.

Tanie Kitabayashi

Talking of casting, I felt that a lack of imagination was evident in hiring 51-year-old character actress Tanie Kitabayashi to do her old granny act yet again when Sachiko Murase would have been a far better fit for the complex character described by Inoue. Well-made though it is, ultimately I couldn’t help feeling that the film would have had more depth if it had been cast and scored differently and directed by Kinoshita or Miyoji Ieki instead of Takizawa.

A note on the title:

The title can be written as Shirobamba or Shirobanba in English; the character ん is usually written as ‘n’ in translation, but when pronounced before a ‘b’, it’s natural to close the mouth more fully, so it comes out sounding more like an ‘m’. This is also the reason why both Tetsuro Tanba and Tetsuro Tamba can be considered correct.

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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Waga ai / わが愛 (‘My Love’, 1960)

Obscure Japanese Film #232

 

Ineko Arima

Niizu (Shin Saburi) is a newspaper reporter who drops dead in the street after a night of heavy drinking. At the wake, his wife (Yatsuko Tan’ami) is surprised when a mysterious guest turns up to pay her respects. This is Kiyo (Ineko Arima), a young woman who has been Niizu’s mistress for the past three years while he was in the mountains working on a labour of love, a book entitled A History of the Chinese Salt Industry (sounds riveting!). 

 

Yatsuko Tan'ami

In flashback, we learn how Kiyo first met Niizu during the war when she was a teenager and was living with her aunt and a geisha named Hideya (Nobuko Otowa), who Niizu regularly slept with. One night, Niizu, Hideya and Kiyo were all sharing the same room when Niizu made love to Hideya while Kiyo kept her head turned away and covered her ears. When they were finished, Hideya went to use the bathroom and Niizu took the opportunity to say to Kiyo, ‘When you grow up, let’s have an affair.’ Instead of being creeped out by this, she fell in love with him and started keeping a scrapbook of his newspaper articles. When they met again a few years later, it was she who initiated their affair...

 

Arima

This Shochiku production involved many of the same talents that made the previously-reviewed film The Hunting Rifle (1961). Like that later picture, it was directed by Heinosuke Gosho, shot by Haruo Takeno, scripted by Toshio Yasumi based on a Yasushi Inoue story, scored by Yasushi Akutagawa and featured Shin Saburi and Nobuko Otowa. It’s safe to assume, then, that Waga ai was a commercial success as Shochiku would not have green-lit The Hunting Rifle otherwise. However, it suffers from several of the same fatal flaws as that later picture and I doubt it would be well-received by audiences today, which is perhaps why the only way to see it is via an old VHS transfer.

Shin Saburi

Nobel Prize nominee Yasushi Inoue was a very talented writer but, like many Japanese authors of the 20th-century, he was extremely prolific and divided his efforts between writing highbrow literary material and more commercial works to pay the rent, so that the quality of his work varied greatly. Without an English translation, I’m not sure how the 1952 story ‘Tsuya no kyaku’ (‘A Guest at the Wake’) which provided the basis for this film sits on that spectrum, but, for me anyway, the story is the fundamental problem here, consisting as it mostly does of  sentimental claptrap meets male wish-fulfilment. Indeed, it’s a complete mystery why Kiyo would fall in love with a craggy-faced, middle-aged, married drunk old enough to be her father and basically insist on becoming his uncomplaining slave; feminism must have been a completely alien concept to the people responsible for this film. Perhaps if Niizu had been played by someone more charismatic than Saburi, it might have helped a little, but probably not much – the picture is also sabotaged by the cloying clichés which make up Yasushi Akutagawa’s dreadful score.

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.

The Hunting Rifle / 猟銃 / Ryoju (1961)

Obscure Japanese Film #73

Mariko Okada

 

Saiko (Fujiko Yamamoto), the wife of Kadota, a young doctor (Keiji Sada), receives an unexpected visit one day from Hamako (Nobuko Otowa), an emotionally unstable woman accompanied by a 5-year-old girl she claims to be Kadota’s daughter. Hamako dumps the girl, Shoko, on her, saying she is no longer able to raise her by herself and Shoko is Kadota’s responsibility. Shortly after leaving, Hamako commits suicide. Feeling sorry for Shoko, Saiko decides to raise her as her own, but cannot forgive her husband his infidelity and insists on a divorce. 

 

Fujiko Yamamoto

Sometime later, Saiko goes to visit her newly-married cousin, the 20-year-old Midori (Mariko Okada), and meets her much older, pottery-fancying husband, Misugi (Shin Saburi), for the first time. Misugi tricks Saiko into going for a walk alone with him, which leads to a long-running affair. Eight years passes, and Misugi and Saiko still have no idea that Midori has known they’ve been cheating on her almost from the beginning but has chosen to remain silent…

 

Keiji Sada

This Shochiku production is quite a free adaptation of Yasushi Inoue’s highbrow 60-page novella first published in 1949. The original story is introduced by a narrator who has been contacted out of the blue by a hunter (Misugi) after the latter realised that he must have been the inspiration for a man portrayed by the poet in one of his works. Misugi sends him a letter from each of the three women in his life, and it is these letters through which the rest of the story unfolds. Such a literary device was obviously not going to work for the cinema, so it was understandably dropped by screenwriter Toshio Yasumi, who had already collaborated on half a dozen other films with this film’s director, Heinosuke Gosho (and would go on to write a terrific screenplay for Shiro Toyoda’s Portrait of Hell). However, despite the fact that several scenes are replicated faithfully, much of the character motivation evident in the novella is not put across well here. 

 

Shin Saburi upstaged by a lamp

Indeed, The Hunting Rifle features perhaps the most implausible seduction scene in cinema history when Misugi, having known Saiko for what seems like five minutes, poses the question, ‘Being obsessed with Joseon white porcelain is alright, so why shouldn’t I be obsessed by you?’, which is apparently all it takes for her to melt into his arms. In the book, this is not really a ‘scene’ at all, and so is not an issue, especially as Saiko goes on to explain her motivation. Another clumsy moment occurs in the film when Misugi gives Shoko (now played by Haruko Wanibuchi) a book for her 16th birthday, explaining that the contents are all about love. This comes across as inappropriate and creepy here, but not so in the book, in which there is no explanation from Misugi. The filmmakers also neglect to make use of a memorable visual image that occurs in the original when Saiko visits a university and is disturbed by some snake specimens she sees preserved in jars. This leads Misugi to observe that ‘Everyone’s got a snake in him,’ a sentence which haunts Saiko, who comes to believe herself at the mercy of a persistent self-destructive urge which she visualises as a snake coiled in her belly. In the film, we don’t get the scene with the specimens, so the talk of snakes seems merely whimsical. Furthermore, the symbol of The Hunting Rifle itself goes for very little in the film, whereas in the story it is made quite clear that it represents man’s essential loneliness.

 

Nobuko Otowa

Another problem with Gosho’s film is the casting, especially that of Shin Saburi. In his hands, Misugi is not only physically unattractive but completely uncharismatic, making Saiko’s helpless attraction for him baffling. Fujiko Yamamoto is a fine actress, but does not seem at all the sort to stab her cousin in the back, and her somewhat mask-like features are perhaps not the best at expressing complex emotions. It’s the more expressive Mariko Okada who takes the acting honours here – when the story jumps forward by eight years, Midori has changed from a rather naïve, gauche young thing to a sophisticated woman with considerable poise, and Okada not only handles this transformation very well, but is great at revealing the hidden thoughts of her character with a subtle look. The other notable names in the cast – Nobuko Otowa and Keiji Sada – are featured surprisingly little considering their status, but do their usual good work. But the casting of Sada also works against the film – imagine a woman leaving Keiji Sada because he had an affair and then rushing off to have an affair of her own with Shin Saburi! 

 

I found this a real disappointment from director Heinosuke Gosho, whose films are generally good to excellent (I’d especially recommend An Inn at Osaka and An Innocent Witch). Although Inoue’s novella was unsuited to the screen in the first place, that certainly does not excuse all the poor choices here, which also include the truly awful string-laden music score complete with repeated harp glissando that heavily underlines every emotional moment. This is reminiscent of Hollywood at its corniest, and something I found especially grating as I watch Japanese films of this period partly to get away from all that. The culprit, Yasushi Akutagawa, has done good scores too, and I’ve noticed that the work of many Japanese film composers in particular seems to vary a great deal in quality, though I’m unsure why. Anyway, combined with the ham-fisted adaptation and ill-advised casting, the music makes The Hunting Rifle an almost total misfire for me, with only Mariko Okada hitting the target.