Obscure Japanese Film #132
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Machiko Kyo and Ayako Wakao
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Before I begin, I should point out that, although I don’t usually
write a synopsis that includes the ending, on this occasion I will be discussing
the ending and its differences from the book…
Momoko (Machiko Kyo) and Asako (Ayako Wakao) are half sisters
still living at home with their widowed father, Mizuhara (Ken Uehara). The
mother of Momoko, the older of the two, committed suicide, while Asako’s mother
died of illness. However, Mizuhara actually has a third daughter, Wakako
(Yasuko Kawakami), born out of wedlock, who lives in Kyoto and whose mother, Kikue
(Haruyo Ichikawa) is still alive. Asako – warm, sensitive and compassionate and
with a desire to help others – is keen to meet Wakako, but the rather cold,
bitter and cynical Momoko advises her not to meddle.
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Ken Uehara
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Momoko’s family believe that she is suffering from a broken heart due
to the suicide of her mother and also because her boyfriend, Keita (Keizo
Kawasaki), was killed at Okinawa during the war, but there is more to it than
that…
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Keizo Kawasaki
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In a flashback sequence, we learn that before Keita left for a
probable death, he had persuaded Momoko to let him make a tea bowl from a mould
of her breast, which he could take with him to the front line and enjoy his
final drink from. During the same evening, he persuaded her to sleep with him,
after which he unexpectedly insulted her and left, leaving her shocked and
confused.
Now, Momoko has been attempting to fill the void by having an
affair with Takemiya (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), a student several years her junior, but
he is a highly emotional young man who can’t take it when he realises that
Momoko is not serious about their relationship. When he commits suicide, Momoko
not only has yet another tragic death to process, but finds herself pregnant with
his child.
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Hiroshi Kawaguchi and Machiko Kyo
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Meanwhile, Keita’s brother, Natsuji (also played by Keizo
Kawasaki), wants to meet his dead brother’s girlfriend, but Momoko hates him on
sight due to his strong resemblance to his brother… However, Natsuji ends up
becoming friendly with Asako instead, and relations between the families of
Momoko and Keita continue. Keita’s father, Aoki (Bontaro Miake), apologises to
Momoko for the conduct of his son, explaining that Keita had insulted her only
because he loved her so much and didn’t want her to grieve if he was
killed. He even persuades her to keep
Takemiya’s child, and Momoko’s heart finally thaws…
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Bontaro Miake and Machiko Kyo
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Koji Shima’s film starts out very faithful to Yasunari Kawabata’s
1951 novel of the same name, which has recently appeared in English for the first
time as The Rainbow. However, much of
Kawabata’s novel consists of conversations the characters have about flowers,
art and architecture, etc, which have little direct bearing on the plot, so
it’s understandable that the film dispenses with most of these. The film also
provides a clear explanation of Keita’s motivation for insulting Momoko,
whereas in the book this can be perhaps be inferred but is never spelt out. But
the most significant difference is in the ending. In the novel, Momoko is
subtly manipulated by her father and Aoki into having her baby aborted and
hates herself for having gone along with it. The book ends with Momoko finally
being formally introduced to her other half sister Wakako, but the meeting is
stiff and awkward. It’s not hard to see why Daiei wanted to change this ending
– even though sad endings are far more common in the Japanese cinema than in
Hollywood movies, such an unsentimental finish was unlikely to have been
well-received.
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Hiroshi Kawaguchi
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In the film, the baby represents the possibility of future
happiness for Momoko, whose meeting with Wakako – with the whole family present
– is far warmer and more satisfactory. Momoko thinks she sees a rainbow, and
then everyone rushes to the window to see it, but there’s nothing there and
they all laugh cheerfully. However, the very last shot is of a military jet
flying past the window. This is rather puzzling, and I’m not sure I would have
understood why Shima did this if I hadn’t read the book (and even now I’m
speculating to some extent). It should also be noted that we hear a military
jet fly over off-screen around 8 minutes into the film. There are no jets in
the book, but there is some talk about the A-bomb and the fact that the
characters are now living in the nuclear age. For this reason, I believe that
the final shot - an idea that Shima may have nicked from Tomu Uchida's A Hole of My Own Making (1955) - was Shima’s attempt to temper the apparently optimistic ending
with a little uncertainty so as not to entirely betray Kawabata’s intentions. Unfortunately,
it doesn’t really work in my view and just seems a bit random and baffling.
Having recently reviewed Shima’s The Beloved Image (1960), I can see some similarities between the
two films – both star Machiko Kyo, both are adapted from serious works of
literature, both make good use of weather, and both feature a number of shots
which are clearly symbolic; in A Rainbow
at Every Turn, Kyo’s face is deliberately obscured on a couple of occasions
by a sliding shoji, characters are separated at certain moments by a conveniently-placed
post or similar, and at one point a close-up of Kyo’s face through a venetian
blind seems to be equating her situation to the caged bird featured in the same
shot. However, the devastating ending of The
Beloved Image is clearly not compromised at all, and I believe that it was
in that later film that Shima was able to achieve exactly what he wanted.
After seeing these two films, it’s also clear that, although Shima
was one man, he was in effect two directors – the journeyman who made not
particularly intelligent commercial fare like The Phantom Horse and Warning
from Space, and the artist who had loftier aspirations and was at least
sometimes able to realise these very well, as he does partially in this film
and fully in The Beloved Image. Before
he became a director in 1939, Shima had been a star actor who had worked for distinguished
directors such as Kenji Mizoguchi and Tomu Uchida, so it’s safe to assume he
had learned a thing or two from them. In A
Rainbow at Every Turn, Shima uses few close-ups and keeps the camera mostly
– but not entirely – static, while the only music is some classical style piano
featured over the opening credits and finally being reintroduced during the
final scene. This sober, unshowy style works in the film’s favour for the most
part, while Machiko Kyo and Ayako Wakao are perfect casting as the two sisters –
as a result of their fine performances, these two characters feel more
substantial than they do in Kawabata’s novel. Unfortunately, the same cannot be
said of Hiroshi Kawaguchi, an actor better suited to comic roles who is miscast
here and unconvincing when required to break down emotionally. Overall, though,
this is another film that provides strong evidence to suggest that Shima is a
director worthy of further investigation – once the films he made purely to pay
the rent have been weeded out, anyway.
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Ayako Wakao
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Thanks to A.K.
Thanks also to Coral Sundy for the English subtitles, which can be found here.
