Tobira o hiraku onna / 扉を開く女 (1946)

Obscure Japanese Film #270

Yumeji Tsukioka

Yokohama c.1880. Okinu (Yumeji Tsukioka) is a young woman who sings and plays the gekkin (aka yueqin or ‘moon lute’) in restaurants to earn a living. She’s in love with Shinkichi (Kanji Koshiba), a carriage driver studying to be a lawyer under windbag Professor Naito (Mitsusaburo Ramon).

Kanji Koshiba

Her neighbour, Kikue (Yaeko Mizutani I, frequently confused with her daughter, Yaeko Mizutani II), is a widowed sewing instructor who was forced to endure an unhappy marriage. As a young woman, she had been in love with Takano, but unable to marry him as he was an ashigaru (samurai of the lowest rank). Instead, she was made to recite the ‘Three Obediences of a Woman’ – which are first to her parents, second to her husband and finally to her children – until it nearly drove her mad and then had to marry a man who had no feelings for her.

Yaeko Mizutani

When the supposedly liberal Professor Naito proves objects strongly to Shinkichi’s intention to marry Okinu, Kikue is determined that Okinu not suffer the same fate, so she takes matters into her own hands and visits the professor herself…

Misusaburo Ramon (supposedly!)

Produced by Daiei at their Kyoto studios, this was supposedly based on an original screenplay by Yoshikata Yoda. However, Yoda clearly stole the plot from Kyoka Izumi’s 1907 novel Onna keizu, the multiple film versions of which include Teinosuke Kinugasa’s The Romance of Yushima and Kenji Misumi’s 1962 version (the latter of which had a screenplay by Yoda).

This was director Keigo Kimura’s first post-war film and the conditions he had to work under would have been quite restrictive this early on during the occupation, when the authorities would only give the green light to pictures that promoted democracy and were against feudalism. This one is not terribly subtle in its approach and contains dialogue such as, “I despise such feudalistic thinking! Japan still hasn’t managed to break free from it…”, etc etc.

Yaeko Mizutani

The acting is not terribly interesting either, with Yaeko Mizutani’s theatrical origins being all too obvious and her decision to speak like Minnie Mouse when playing the young Kikue in the flashbacks especially regrettable. Director Kimura manages some nice moments here and there, but overall this is a contrived and sentimental affair which has not aged well.

A note on the title:

A few slightly different variations are possible but, because the title seems to refer to Kikue, who opens a (metaphorical) door for Okinu – and potentially for other women in similar positions – the most apt translation is perhaps ‘The Woman Who Opened Doors’.

Thanks to A.K.

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Inoru hito / 祈るひと (1959)

Obscure Japanese Film #242

Izumi Ashikawa

Tsutomu Shimomoto

Yumeji Tsukioka

Yuji Odaka

Akiko (Izumi Ashikawa) is the only child of her father (Tsutomu Shimomoto) and mother (Yumeji Tsukioka) and is approaching marriageable age. She has always regarded her academic father as cold and remote and seen little evidence of love between her parents, so she’s keen not to make a mistake in choosing her own husband. Pressured into going on an arranged date with the boorish Hasuike (Yuji Odaka), she’s far from impressed when he takes her to the cinema to see a grade-Z western, but as she begins seriously thinking about her options for the future, she finds herself looking back at the past...

This Nikkatsu production was based on a novel of the same name by Torahiko Tamiya (1911-88) originally published as a serial in a women’s magazine the year before. His work is unavailable in English, but also provided the basis for the previously-reviewed Love is Lost (1956) and Stepbrothers (1957) among other films. Featuring some voiceover narration from Ashikawa’s character, the film unfolds in a sometimes confusing flashback structure and wanders off into some subplots of dubious relevance. However, despite these flaws, the film turns out to be a surprisingly serious and thoughtful story of a young woman finding out who her parents really are – and, by extension, who she really is. It’s also very nicely-handled by director Eisuke Takizawa, who elicits good performances all round and also made the recently-reviewed picture The Samurai of Edo.

On a cultural note, there’s a scene in which Akiko visits a bar popular with students where they sing Russian folk songs in Japanese and all seem to know the words, an odd phenomenon also featured in the 1956 film Gyakukosen. Incidentally, although there’s a close-up of the poster for the film Hasuike takes Akiko to at the cinema, I was unable to identify it despite translating the text – was it such a low-budget piece of crap that it’s vanished without a trace or was it a fictional film that never existed in the first place?

Inoru hito is sometimes translated (incorrectly in my view) as ‘The Praying Man’, which I don’t think was ever an official English title. While the standard translation of inoru is ‘pray’, it can also be interpreted less literally as ‘hope’, while hito is genderless and can be read as ‘person’ / ‘people’ / ‘human(s)’, etc. As there's a scene in which Akiko is shown in a praying posture, it seems likely that the title refers to her, and there’s certainly no male character it could relate to. A better English title, then, might be ‘One Who Prays.’

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Film at Amazon Prime Video Japan

I’ll Cry Alone / 帯をとく夏子 / Obi o toku Natsuko (‘Natsuko Unties Her Obi’, 1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #235

Ayako Wakao

Eiji Funakoshi

Natsuko (Ayako Wakao) is a former hot spring geisha who has become the exclusive mistress of company president Sakuma (Eiji Funakoshi in unconvincing old man make-up). He’s under pressure from his sister Kanako (Yumeji Tsukioka) to marry Taeko (Noriko Hodaka) as it will be good for the company and, although he wants to continue seeing Natsuko on the side, Natsuko is not happy with the idea.

Yumeji Tsukioka

Kyoko Enami

A chance of a different future seems to present itself when Sakuma begins a liaison with unlikely window cleaner Sumiko (Kyoko Enami) and Natsuko runs into (literally) the teacher she had a crush on at school, Kenji (Mikijiro Hira). However, he’s now reduced to working as a garage mechanic and unable to keep her in the luxury to which she has become accustomed…

Mikijiro Hira

This Daiei production was based on the ‘Natsuko’ series of stories by Seiichi Funahashi* serialised in the literary magazine Shincho between 1952 and 1961. The first batch was published as a novel entitled Geisha Konatsu in 1952, and Toho had produced two films about Natsuko using that title in 1954/55 with Mariko Okada starring. Funahashi was also the author of the source material for Story of a Blind Woman (also 1965) and the two versions of Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950 and 1968). Unfortunately, as I felt was the case for those stories, this is another that’s unlikely to resonate much with viewers these days.

Although the film has a clear message in favour of female independence, coming as it does after we have watched Natsuko fawning over two undeserving men for most of the film, it feels tacked on almost as an afterthought. Considering the deeply-ingrained sexism of the society that Natsuko is forced to inhabit, a more hard-hitting approach would have been preferable, but the tone is fairly light here, with some scenes simply played for laughs (of which, admittedly, there are a couple). This half-heartedness is probably because the real reason for the film’s existence was simply to provide another vehicle for Ayako Wakao; at the time, much was made of the fact that she wore only kimono in this picture – but, of course, a different kimono for each scene.

Directed by veteran Shigeo Tanaka with the same competent indifference he brought to the earlier Wakao costume-change flick Tokyo Onigiri Girl (1961).

*Sometimes listed as Seiichi Funabashi, but I think that’s incorrect.

DVD at Amazon Japan

Thanks to A.K. and to Coralsundy for the English subtitles

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The Flesh is Weak / 美徳のよろめき / Bitoku no yoromeki (‘Faltering Virtue’, 1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #174

Yumeji Tsukioka

 

28-year-old Setsuko (Yumeji Tsukioka), a former member of the aristocracy, has come down in the world somewhat after the war and ended up marrying below her class to Ichiro (Rentaro Mikuni), whose uncouth table manners appal her. 

 

Rentaro Mikuni

 

Despite being a wife and mother, she’s unable to forget her first love, Tsuchiya (Ryoji Hayama), especially as she keeps running into him (small place, Tokyo!). When her mother dies, Tsuchiya attends the funeral and, while paying his respects, whispers in Setsuko’s ear that he will be waiting for her the following day at 3 pm at a shrine. They start seeing each other on the sly, but he seems like such a nice guy that she believes it will remain platonic and her conscience will be clear. However, he has a weird fixation with eating breakfast naked… 

 

Ryoji Hayama

 

When Setsuko’s best friend, Yoshiko (Chikako Miyagi) – who is cheating on her own husband – arranges an excuse for Setsuko and Tsuchiya to sneak off to a hotel in Izu together, Setsuko freaks out when her uncle turns up at the hotel with some golfing buddies, stretching this film’s coincidence quota to the limit. Furthermore, Tsuchiya starts having non-platonic thoughts and tries to act on them, but finds himself rebuffed by Setsuko, who feels that she must remain faithful to her husband and certainly doesn’t want to eat breakfast naked with anyone…

 

 

This Nikkatsu production was adapted by Kaneto Shindo from a newly-published bestselling novel by Yukio Mishima (yet to be translated into English, but available in Chinese and Italian). The opening narration by actor Masaya Takahashi goes on for over 10 minutes and betrays the film’s literary origins. However, while the ending is apparently close to that of the novel, what happens in between is quite different, and it appears that Mishima’s original had Setsuko carrying on an extended sexual affair with Tsuchiya which results in two pregnancies, both of which are aborted. They also eat breakfast naked together, but I guess you couldn’t show that in a film in 1957 (so why have them talk about it, you may well ask). Anyway, although Mishima himself did not regard the novel as one of his serious literary efforts, he was not impressed and wrote in his diary that he could not imagine a more stupid movie. 

 

 

It doesn’t help that Setsuko is a self-pitying snob who is unnecessarily stern to her good-humoured maid, making it hard to feel much sympathy for her. Nikkatsu’s biggest female star at the time, Yumeji Tsukioka, does as well as can be expected under the circumstances, but Rentaro Mikuni is wasted in a role with little substance and Ryoji Hayama fails to make much impression as Tsuchiya. 

 

Chikako Miyagi

 

Chikako Miyagi fares better as the cheerfully amoral and flashily-dressed Yoshiko, and it’s nice to see Koreya Senda – who had just played a rare leading role in director Ko Nakahira’s Temptation – pop up again here as Setsuko’s dad. 

 

Koreya Senda

Nakahira also seemed to have a fondness for his namesake, actor Ko Nishimura, who appeared in at least half a dozen of his films, including this one in which he has a small part as a blind masseur who sees things his client (Setsuko) can’t. If only Nakahira could have seen the defects in the script… 

 

Ko Nishimura

 

Thanks to A.K.

A Hole of My Own Making / 自分の穴の中で / Jibun no ana no nakade (1955)

 Obscure Japanese Film #134

Rentaro Mikuni, Mie Kitahara and Jukichi Uno

Tamiko (Mie Kitahara) is a young woman living at home with her stepmother, Nobuko (Yumeji Tsukioka), and her bedridden brother, Junjiro (Nobuo Kaneko). Tamiko’s parents are both deceased and she’s approaching the usual age for marriage, so candidates are being discussed. Her father had wanted her to marry Komatsu (Jukichi Uno), an easygoing nice guy who works in a munitions factory, but she’s not attracted to him. Tamiko prefers the more aggressive and ambitious Ihara (Rentaro Mikuni), a medical doctor who spends most of his time experimenting on animals when he’s not womanising. However, she mistakenly believes that Nobuko wants him for herself, and this becomes a major source of friction between the two women. Meanwhile, Junjiro – who has never got over the fact that his wife left him – is becoming increasingly obsessed with investing in stocks and shares…

Yumeji Tsukioka

 

This Nikkatsu production was based on an untranslated 1955 novel of the same name by the left-wing writer Tatsuzo Ishikawa (1905-85), whose work was also to provide the basis for several Satsuo Yamamoto films, including The Human Wall (1959). Ishikawa had actually been imprisoned by the Japanese authorities for a few months in 1938 as a result of his novel Soldiers Alive, which criticised the Japanese presence in China; he subsequently avoided such topics until after the war. A Hole of My Own Making was adapted for the screen by Yasutaro Yagi, who had written a number of scripts for this film’s director, Tomu Uchida, back in the 1930s, before Uchida disappeared into Manchuria for a decade or so. The fact that Uchida chose to work with these two writers and that the resulting film shows so little regard for commercial considerations (with the possible exception of its casting) leaves little doubt that it was a personal passion project and by no means a routine studio assignment. 

Nobuo Kaneko

 

Like Uchida’s previous film, Twilight Saloon, it also seems to be something of an allegory for post-war Japan, perhaps most obviously in the character of Junjiro, a disillusioned and broken man pursuing financial wealth for its own sake from his sickbed. However, despite the rich symbolism that can be found throughout, I’ve seldom seen a film which leaves it so much up to the audience to decide how to feel about the characters, especially in the case of Tamiko and Nobuko. Who exactly are we supposed to be rooting for here? It’s so unclear that it’s almost disorienting in comparison to the majority of movies, and it’s difficult even to be certain about which character is referred to in the title – a hole of whose own making? Initially, I thought it must have been referring to Komatsu, who is introduced at the beginning of the film sleeping in a drainage tunnel (?), but by the end I thought it made more sense referring to Tamiko… Anyway, I personally enjoyed the film’s ambiguity, though I can imagine that some might feel exasperated and lose patience. 

Mie Kitahara

 

Even more unconventional is the harpsichord score by Yasushi Akutagawa (son of Rashomon writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa!), which at times sounds like it's being played by a demented chimp. Weirdly, I kind of liked this too, and you certainly can’t accuse anyone of going for the obvious here. Talking of music, Nobuko and Ihara attend a koto concert around half an hour in, and the blind musician we see performing is quite something. He is Michio Miyagi (1894-1956), one of the all-time greats of traditional Japanese music.*

Michio Miyagi

 

The actors are all well cast and the performances solid all round. Mikuni dissects a live frog at one point, and doesn’t appear to have faked it – unsurprising as he was known for taking realism to extremes. The point was presumably to underline the character’s lack of feeling, but I have to say that I thought it was unnecessary. 

Mikuni with another unfortunate co-star

 

To return to the film’s use of metaphors, a new sports centre is being built outside Tamiko’s family home, and construction noises are audible in every daytime scene set in that location – clearly a deliberate if unusual choice, and one that I think was intended to suggest that the old way of life is coming to an end. As in the recently-reviewed film A Rainbow at Every Turn (1956), military jets fly over in several scenes, including right at the end, implying an uncertain future not just for Tamiko and what’s left of her family, but for the Japanese people as a whole. But Uchida never represents his characters in this film as simple victims of change – many of them are unlikeable and are pursuing selfish goals, and in various ways they bring their misfortunes on themselves. Perhaps the title refers to more than one of the characters after all, and of course it could be taken to refer to the Japanese nation as a whole, so A Hole of Our Own Making might have been a better fit.

*Despite his blindness, Miyagi also composed the score for a 1935 version of Princess Kaguya photographed by special effects whiz Eiji Tsuburaya. A shortened version (33 minutes instead of the original 75) was rediscovered in the UK in 2015. An excerpt can be viewed on YouTube here. 

Thanks to A.K.

For more on A Hole of My Own Making, click here.