35 SHOTS OF RUM - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review was originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2010.

"We have everything here. Why go looking elsewhere?"

The latest film from Claire Denis, 35 Shots of Rum, trains its lens on the tenants of a French apartment building. At the center of the interpersonal drama is the old subway engineer Lionel (Alex Descas, Coffee and Cigarettes), who lives alone with his daughter Jo (Mati Diop) and who has an occasional affair with the upstairs neighbor, a taxi driver named Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué). Gabrielle pines for Lionel, but he is distant and untouchable, in charge of his own space and his emotions. It runs in the family. Another upstairs neighbor, Noé (Grégoire Colin, Nénette et Boni) has a thing for Jo, but she maybe sees a little too much of her dad in him. Ironically, the young drifter would settle down if maybe the girl would just give him the nod.

Of such simple stuff are great dramas often made, and 35 Shots of Rum observes these regular lives with an elegance and insight that ensures every small act assumes great importance. A chance encounter can alter everything, even if just for a day. A thoughtless action can break a heart, a minor gesture can invoke jealousy. The film is regularly compared to Ozu in the way it shows modern living and the schism between young and old, and that comparison couldn't be more justified. At the same time, Denis makes the genre (is Ozu a genre now?) her own by updating it. Her eye is a tad more cynical, and her character situation reversed. Rather than the older generation failing to understand the changes of the newer generation, it's Jo and Noé who are mourning lost values. Lionel may talk about stability, but outside of his homebase, he's a wanderer, tied to no one. For all his freedom, he is trapped.

Denis spent her early career working alongside Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders, and her films have a similar poetic laziness that draws more out of what is not said than what is. If character is action, then behavior is all that is needed to drive the plot. The way Gabrielle hangs around, nervously knocking at the door even after she has said her good-bye, or the way Lionel stares at another women across the room--these are profound moments, and in the case of the quiet man who forms the film's axis, silence is his greatest tool. As an audience, we are as compelled to watch Alex Descas as the people onscreen are compelled to watch Lionel. Some actors can draw the camera's attention just by their mere presence. Descas owns whatever space he inhabits. He doesn't have to claim it, it's just his. Yet, his most poignant moments come when he is vulnerable, playing the father realizing he could lose his daughter to another man.

Naturally, the actor is aided by the environment Claire Denis and cinematographer Agnès Godard (Golden Door) create for them. The action is staged in real locations, and the pair shoot from within the space provided. The look of 35 Shots of Rum is intimate and authentic, lending the same credibility to the performers and the story.

Keeping in line with the scale of the rest of the picture, the change that Denis and regular co-writer Jean-Pol Fargeau map out for Lionel is not a major one. Rather, it's learned and it's subtle. One of his colleagues, René (Julieth Mars Toussaint), retires early in the tale, presumably set free to enjoy life without the endless repetition of the subway routes. He doesn't go anywhere, though, he just hangs around, unsure of what to do with himself. The patterns he has established are all he knows, and he can't make a real change. His lack of purpose serves as a warning for Lionel: if you stay on the same track your entire life, you may never get to switch over to another. These are working-class versions of Ozu's salarymen: if you give your life to the job, what left do you have for yourself? The bigger life change is made by Jo, who assures her father that even though there might be other men in her life, they still will be father and daughter forever. She embraces the absolute even as she gets away from it. (Likewise, she reconnects with the past to wriggle out of its grasp.) To do otherwise is to become like Gabrielle, hung up on something she can never have.

The thirty-five shots of rum of the title is in reference to Lionel's special ritual, something he holds close and only indulges on the most special of occasions. When you consider the effects of alcohol, this too could be seen as an attempt to obliterate memories while also providing a balm that soothes one through a possibly unwanted transition. It's reckless, but so is life. We only see Lionel partake of this once, and he avoids explaining it until then, and so it's special when it happens. In a way, delving back into this drinking game suggests that maybe this is a case that the more things change, the more Lionel stays the same, and while a celebration is underway, he almost looks like he is at a wake rather than a party; at the same time, there is hope in his carriage. Acceptance. A cleansing. His head might be fuzzy in the morning--indeed, we've seen Lionel's hangovers--but once the cobwebs are clear, it's a whole new day.

THE FLAVOR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICE - #989

I’ve often heard Yasujiro Ozu described as someone whose work you have to “get.” Which I kind of understand. His films often challenge what we consider to be the essentials of drama and cinema alike. Where we expect high emotion, he delivers a careful response; where there would otherwise be histrionics, Ozu works in silence; when others might stage a scene on its feet, the Japanese director has his actors sit down. (Look at the Criterion promo pieces on their site: everyone is sitting!)

In all honesty, even as someone who likes Ozu a whole lot, the full impact of his 1952 domestic drama The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice didn’t hit me until its final act, I wasn’t seeing how all the pieces fit. In those last scenes, the filmmaker works with the quiet of late night, using the stillness that occurs when most everyone is in bed. In this scenario, an older married couple, Satake and Taeko (played by Shin Saburi and Michiyo Kogure), who up until now have not carried on a real conversation, are reunited after a trip Satake was taking is cut short. The surprise of his return disarms his wife, and she offers to make him a snack. In the kitchen, they hunt for food (the servants who know where everything is are asleep) and eventually sit down to share the meal--the titular green tea over rice, an old standby, always reliable. Animosity and disappointment dissipates, and they actually chat. It’s a restrained scene, full of inconsequential small talk, and yet everything said means so much. It’s basically watching a couple remember why they got together in the first place.

Though, the irony is, their union is the result of an arranged marriage, so why they got together was not up to them. One of Ozu’s regular themes is the divide between the old and young, between tradition and modernity, and that is no different in The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice. The second story of the film is of Setsuko (Keiko Tsushima), Taeko’s niece. Setsuko is of the age where social expectation says she should be wed. Her parents are keen to arrange this for her, but Setsuko is not so hot on the idea. In one comical sequence, she ditches out on a date, leaving Taeko behind with the would-be suitor. Even after her uncle brings her back--she and Satake have a strong and tender relationship where they confide in and look out for each other--she escapes again, ultimately joining him and his young friend Noboru (Koji Tsuruta) at the pachinko parlor.

Setsuko and Noboru are of a younger generation who are mindful of their parents’ traditions but eager for more freedom. It’s a pre-War/post-War divide. It’s not that the youngsters are rejecting everything--Noboru is very respectful of the ladder he has to climb in his burgeoning career--but the shift in Japan’s position in the world has opened their eyes to different possibilities. Not to mention the defenders of the old ways deliver a mixed message. Taeko says fixed marriages work, but then why is she so unhappy in her own?

Taeko and her gal pals are a particularly lively pocket of The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, resembling a Cukor-esque cadre of women, coming together for some good times out on the town, inventing ridiculous lies to fool their husbands (pre-Google, apparently folks’d make claims to having things like “appendicitis” without knowing what that meant and hope for the best), and generally being catty drunkards. Ozu and screenwriter Kogo Noda don’t particularly judge them, but they certainly throw enough obstacles and juxtapositions in their way to make them question what they are doing, even if they don’t say anything. For instance, when Aya (Chikage Awashima) sees her husband on a date with a younger woman, the script asks for callous denial via the dialogue, but the director asks his actress to deliver something completely different with her face. It hurts, but to admit it would be to put a lie too her carefree demeanor.

The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice isn’t an exciting movie. It’s not a sexy movie. It’s not peppered with pithy quips or energized with shocking violence of either the physical or emotional kind. It is, however, quite exceptional in its restraint. In an Ozu world, the tiniest feelings have the greatest resonance. All moments are important whether or not they are played at full volume, all desires and hurts are of great magnitude even when expressed in the most polite manner possible. The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice creates a feeling of comfort and familiarity that only serves to reinforce the movie’s ultimate affirmations. We get the two outcomes we wanted--old love reinvigorated, new love validated--and we feel it all the deeper for being so much in the movie’s groove.

The high-definition restoration of The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice is really nice, with a clear picture and nuanced values brought forth in the black-and-white photography. If you really want to see the difference between a big upgrade like this and just working with materials available, you can look elsewhere on this Blu-ray for a second Ozu feature, What Did the Lady Forget?

What Did the Lady Forget? was released in 1937, and it was Ozu’s second sound film. The direction is fine, though maybe the pacing is a little slower, and the writing was not as sharp as it was the director collaborated with Noda, his preferred writer (such as on Green Tea). The disc has a short documentary about that relationship that is well worth checking out, as it explains some of their approach and what made their partnership so special.

Yasujiro Ozu and Koga Noda

It’s easy to suss out why Criterion paired What Did the Lady Forget? with The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice. The earlier picture also involves a willful niece (Michiko Kuwano), though this one is a drinker who likes to go out to geisha houses. Her presence brings attention to a rift in the household--the wife is pushy and often unpleasant, the husband a passive go-along kind of guy. Except when he sneaks out on his own and lies about it. After a boozy night with the niece and a young colleague (Shuji Sano), his fibs unravel and trouble brews.

Though not as polished as Ozu’s later films, What Did the Lady Forget? is a bit sharper in its satire, with the characters being more forceful in their actions. The niece in particular is a pistol and a troublemaker. The ending is also surprising, hinging on a passionate slap, and a knowing revelation.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

GOOD MORNING - #84

Please note: the images here are taken from the 2000 standard definition DVD and not the newly released 2017 Blu-ray under review.

Yasujiro Ozu’s light 1959 comedy GoodMorning was one of my first Criterion blind buys. Spotted in a now-closed used record store in Portland, I snatched it up on sight, knowing if I didn’t, it would be gone before I could ever go back to grab it. Such was the rarity of seeing Criterion discs in second-hand bins back in the day--all too unusual, you had to act.

Luckily I had rolled the dice on a pretty safe bet. Good Morning is brimming with joy, even as it maintains Ozu’s usual unassuming attitude. Set in a Tokyo suburb, this genial film tells the stories of several neighboring families. Linked mostly by their young sons, these individual units are subject to gossip, misunderstanding, and judgment--negative foibles hidden just below a very positive surface. You know, the way clans and communities do. When you boil it down, Good Morning is about family, just like most of Ozu’s oeuvre. In this case, not just family by blood, but the community you build.

Oh, and it has fart jokes. To be more exact, one running fart joke that carries through the whole movie. And I don’t care what you think, I love fart jokes. And poop jokes. Especially when a fart joke becomes a poop joke. Which it does here, to hilarious effect.

Though the four boys connect all the houses--including the misunderstood hipster couple with the television and the single English tutor who provide the kids refuge--the central duo of older brother Minoru (Koji Shidara) and younger brother Isamu (Masahiko Shimazu, Late Autumn [review]) end up driving most of the movie. They get the most screen time with their private protest against their supposedly stingy mother (Kuniko Miyake, star of many Ozu films, including Early Summer and Tokyo Story [review]) and her refusal to buy them a TV of their own. Mother Hiyashi is more frugal than stingy, it’s up to her to keep the house on budget, but this is also not the only time in Good Morning that she is accused of financial malfeasance. Another driving storyline is the issue of the missing dues from the local women’s organization. The ladies have varying theories of who made off with the cash, and even though it gets an amicable resolution, the way the situation is concluded splinters off into its own conspiracy theories and gossipy tributaries. There’s not much to do throughout the day, it seems, but get in each other’s business. It’s all innocent and meaningless until it isn’t. Such little things, they make a big difference.

In addition to these kinds of family dynamics, Ozu regularly explored the differences between generations in his movies, and Good Morning is no exception. Here, the aforementioned television is the most prominent example of how times are changing, and the director is certainly seizing upon the cultural shifts occurring at the end of the decade. The kids learning English, the progressive neighbors with posters for French films on their walls (and not just any French film, but Louis Malle’s The Lovers [review]), the nervous patriarchs set adrift in a changing economic landscape--these are all signs of the time. Prescient ones, too. Dad is worried about maintaining employment long enough to have a solid retirement, kids are worried about watching sumo wrestling in the living room. A more judgmental director (like, say, Douglas Sirk in All That HeavenAllows) would be concerned for how this younger generation was going to rot its brain--indeed, one of the older men in Good Morning expresses such a fear--but Ozu seems to take no stance. He is amused by the rebellious youngsters staging their own revolution, but also empathetic to the parents who need to keep things together. If Ozu is siding with anyone, it’s probably the middle generation, like the tutor or the boys’ aunt, both of whom bridge the divide. Is it any surprise, then, that they end up having a little romance?

What may be more interesting here, though, is how Ozu is adopting modern techniques to tell this modern story, particularly since Good Morning is an update of his 1932 silent film I Was Born, But...--which was previously available in the Eclipse set Silent Ozu: Three Family Comedies [review], but is also included in full as an extra on this Good Morning upgrade. Shot in vibrant Technicolor by Yushun Atsuta, Good Morning has a look not dissimilar to television’s nascent genre, the sitcom, a comparison further backed by the episodic nature of Good Morning’s narrative and the jazzy lounge score that keeps the action moving. (Toshiro Mayuzumi was a prolific composer for Japanese movies, working also with Naruse, Imamura, and Kurahara.) Not to mention how all the complicated imbroglios have really simple explanations, the discoveries of which only lead to more complications. It’s almost a shame there wasn’t a spin-off so we could have watched all the kids grow up on a weekly basis.

Fans of Good Morning should be pleased with this new 4K restoration. The colors are gorgeous, and the image quality pristine. Given the gap between this release and the original DVD, Criterion had a lot of new technology to put to use in making Good Morning look good, and the results are stupendous. In addition to  I Was Born, But..., fans of silent film will also appreciate the inclusion of the short A Straightforward Boy, a 1929 effort from Yasujiro Ozu, presented here incomplete, in its only existing form. One of the first efforts of the director to create comedy using children, it’s an amusing trifle about kidnappers being stymied by a child who never quite realizes he’s being kidnapped, and proving too much to handle in the process.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

SILENT OZU - THREE CRIME DRAMAS: DRAGNET GIRL - ECLIPSE SERIES 42

The most straightforward, and yet most complex, entry in the Silent Ozu - Three Crime Dramas set from Criterion’s Eclipse imprint is 1933’s Dragnet Girl, a dual drama about families and relationships and the effect the criminal lifestyle has on the ties that bind.

Joji Oka (No Blood Relation [review]) heads the cast as the charismatic gangster Joji. Formerly a boxer, Joji stepped out of the ring when he fell in love with Tokiko (Mizoguchi and Kinoshita mainstay Kinuya Tanaka, who also appeared in Ozu’s Equinox Flower [review]). Tokiko is a tough cookie in her own right, but she prefers a more domestic crime partnership that doesn’t involve her man getting pummeled on a regular basis. Though Joji has many would-be suitors, Tokiko chasea them all off, thus making it all the more surprising when a nice, quiet girl sneaks in and legit steals Joji’s heart.

Misako (Sumiko Mizukubo, Apart from You [review]) summons the thug to a corner rendezvous to ask him to encourage her little brother, Lefty (Hideo Mitsui), to return to school and give up trying to be a boxer and a crook. He looks up to Joji and would listen. Joji is taken with Misako’s purity and selflessness, and he starts spending his days in the music store where she works, listening to classical records. It’s a far more refined musical excursion than the rowdy nightclubs he usually attends with his gang. To many, Joji is becoming soft. Never mind he’s the guy we saw beat up three bruisers all on his own just a few days before. All it takes is one dame wanting you to settle down...

As the drama ramps up, Dragnet Girl crosses similar territory as Walk Cheerfully [review]. Misako’s positive presence inspires Joji to consider getting clean, and though she initially goes to the record shop with a gun to confront Misako, Tokiko is quickly smitten with her, as well. She thinks about ditching the bad-girl lifestyle modeling herself after her rival. The only one who can’t seem to get Misako’s message of peace is the one she wants to go straight, her little brother, who resists even after his hero threatens him.

Moreso than Walk Cheerfully Ozu toys with the notion of fate in Dragnet Girl. In the psychology of the script, which was written by Tadao Ikeda, the scribe behind Walk Cheerfully and The Only Son [review], working from a story by Ozu himself (hiding behind the pseudonym James Maki), we move closer to the inescapable doom of film noir. Neither Joji nor Tokiko find it easy to make a clean break, and in part because they don’t think they deserve it. Tokiko is offered an ideal marriage by her boss, but can’t see herself stepping into a housewife’s shoes; likewise, Joji must reject Misako in order to “get over her.” When it comes down to it, the only thing that this Japanese Bonnie and Clyde can count on is each other. Whatever their path to get to true love, at least they found it together, and they can get out of it together, too. Embracing a crime trope, Ozu positions them to pull one last heist with the intention of snatching some seed money and getting out of town. It’s a pretty ballsy robbery, with Tokiko leading the charge, and an even more hairy escape when the cops come knocking. Yet, Ozu avoids the expected final shootout, seeking a different solution for his lovers. Punishment offers redemption.

Dragnet Girl actually makes a pretty convincing case for sucking it up and taking your lumps. It doesn’t hurt that the impassioned argument for toughing it out is made by Tokiko. Kinuyo Tanaka has a solid screen presence, and her confident delivery, and the complex emotional swings that get her there, makes for the most convincing acting in the movie. As perfect and angelic as Sumiko Mizukubo is as Kazuko, Tanaka brings her character down to earth, so that she is both sympathetic and relatable. She’s really the only choice for the confused Joji, who frankly comes off as kind of weak-willed and not nearly as tough as he’s intended to be.

But then, Ozu’s women generally have been the ones who have had to carry the heaviest burdens, and who do so with a quiet strength unique to them. In that, Dragnet Girl is part of a long tradition of the filmmaker, even as he would soon leave its genre trappings behind.

Other selections from the Eclipse boxed set Silent Ozu - Three Crime Dramas are reviewed here: That Night's Wife.

SILENT OZU - THREE CRIME DRAMAS: WALK CHEERFULLY - ECLIPSE SERIES 42

“I may be a bad man, but I can still be sincere. I really do love you.”

Made well into the first phase of his career, Yasujiro Ozu’s Walk Cheerfully is a facile drama, of both the crime and melo- variety, proving the Japanese director could have easily plowed his way through the Hollywood studio system, but that his true calling was always the family stories that later became his raison d’être.

Released in 1930, this silent film follows a crook named Kenji (Minoru Takada), a dual personality, both a loyal friend and a deadly opponent, hence his nickname Ken the Knife. Walk Cheerfully opens with a fake-out, as Ken steps in to help when a pickpocket is being chased down by an angry mob. Seemingly an average citizen doing his civic duty, the truth is that the fleeing thief is Ken’s buddy Senko (Hisao Yoshitani). But appearances are important in Walk Cheerfully, be it the projection of a straight image or the trappings of a tough guy. In a nod to the American gangster movies he was emulating, Ozu casts the crooks in his movie as performers, complete with choreographed dance routines and Hollywood memorabilia. A carefully placed poster of Clara Bow with boxing gloves decorates their training area--an image to aspire to and also an object of desire.

Interestingly, this distinction of bad guys as poseurs serves to erase the lines distinguishing hoodlum and common man. Later in the film, Ken’s innocent love interest, Yasue (Hiroko Kawasaki, Ornamental Hairpin [review]), laments that all of her office co-workers, regardless of gender, operate no differently than the criminals that roam the streets. Ironic, then, that she fails to see the truth about Ken, and refuses to believe it until she sees his gangster tattoo. Yet, if being good or bad is matter of behavior and class, than even “the Knife” can turn things around. Ken has enough affection for Yasue that he goes legit, and gets a job washing windows--symbolically erasing the dirt and exposing the view to the clear skies beyond. It’s a task easier said than done when former associates come calling, looking to lure him into one last score, but then, what separates Ken from the rest is his ability to live as who he desires to be, and not just pretend. He can use performance for good, too, hence his comedic pantomime for Yasue and her little sister on their Sunday picnic.

Ozu uses other visual cues--beyond dance and tattoos and clean windows--to bring his criminal underworld to life. When plotting and scheming, his characters are prone to nervous foot tapping. Gesture and slang are things you learn in your role as a tough guy. And when Kenji busts in on Yasue in a hotel room with her licentious boss (Takeshi Sakamoto, There Was a Father [review]; Every-night Dreams [review]), the appearance of impropriety is represented by the booze and smoking cigarette left on the table--and the discarded garment beneath it. Just moments before, Kenji shows anger at being  a potential cuckold by mashing a cigarette between his fingers, at once a gesture of his own impotence and the castration of his rival. Though known best for the emotion he keeps in reserve, the things not said, Ozu manages to find potent ways to express these more scandalous feelings without going overboard.

Walk Cheerfully offers a satisfying mix of typical cinematic moralizing and a more genuine third act, with both Kenji and Senko putting the effort into their rehabilitation. They aren’t transformed into saints over night, and even do their bid in jail. The movie also offers us a credible heroine in Yasue. She is not just a doting girlfriend, but a responsible and productive sister and daughter, working to earn for her family, and loyal to a fault. This saves Ozu from the sort of tacked-on messaging that his American contemporaries would suffer under the Production Code, even while still maintaining his usual optimism. Like the film noir to come, crime in Walk Cheerfully does not pay, but neither does it doom the criminal to an inescapable fate. On the contrary, we have here a movie that suggests once you’ve actually settled the bill, it’s quite possible to move on to a whole other kind of payoff.

Other selections from the Eclipse boxed set Silent Ozu - Three Crime Dramas are reviewed here: That Night's Wife and Dragnet Girl.

THE STORY OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM - #832

If there are two types of stories that tend to be full of big emotion and drama, it’s the coming-of-age tale and the backstage tell-all. Put the two together--adolescent angst and performer’s ego--and all bets are off.

Unless, of course, you’re watching Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1939 film The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum. Though the script is full of melodramatic situations, including a Shakespearean split between father and son and a woman who sacrifices her health to see her husband achieve his greatest dream, Mizoguchi is determined to present it without histrionics, adopting a film style that is more observant than intimate, mimicking the experience of seeing the kabuki plays his characters perform in, shooting the entire story as if sitting in the middle seat inside the theater. No close-ups, no shouting, but heartbreaking all the same.

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum follows Kikunosuke (Shotaro Hanayagi), the adopted son of one of the greatest kabuki performers of their age (played by Gonjuro Kawarazaki). Young Kiku is not a very good actor, and he finds himself torn between false flattery and bitter sniping. When the family’s nanny, Otoku (Kakuko Mori), tells him the truth, the unselfishness of her feeling for him makes Kiku take notice. He becomes determined to improve his art and make his own name in the world. Such a declaration makes him look insubordinate, however, and when the family forbids his romance with Otoku, Kiku has had enough. He leaves to strut the boards in another town.

Otoku eventually joins him and they marry, but good fortune is not yet theirs. Kiku is still mediocre, and when his protective mentor dies, he is forced to trade his position at the theater for a spot in a traveling show--a much less respectable gig, but a gig nonetheless. It provides Kiku with the right experience, but little notice and little money. It will take an act of fate to reverse Kiku’s trajectory--fate engineered by Otoku, even though it may be too late for her to enjoy it.

The idea of needing to suffer for one’s art is not novel to Mizoguchi, but he certainly makes it seem the least romantic. Kiku isn’t a brooding Byron engineering his own disasters; rather, he is earnest and well meaning, and he doesn’t actually see that the misery he is enduring is informing his art. In fact, this may be exactly why he’s not so great on the stage: his inability to delve into his emotional life. The drive to be better is his only focus, and it only allows for selfishness, not self-reflection. Kiku’s perception is based on the public and critical reactions to each night’s play; luckily, he also has Otoku there to keep him motivated. She redirects his energies as necessary.

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum is equal parts A Story of Floating Weeds and Sawdust & Tinsel [review]. It is about family as much as theatre life, with the family of performers forming a secondary clan. In a way, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum is unique in how the family rallies around the lesser amongst them, pooling their efforts to fix Kiku’s life. No man is left behind, as it were. Only in the final act does Kiku become the star of his own story. We finally see him on stage--something that Mizoguchi has mostly kept from us so far, perhaps assuming Kiku might lose our sympathy were we to see how bad he really was--showing us his comeback night, when he proves to his father’s contemporaries that he’s worthy of returning to Tokyo. For the first time, Mizoguchi really takes us onto the stage, and we get to see the man at work.

Mizoguchi fans will be drawn to The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum for Otoku as much as they are Kiku’s fall and ascendance. Perhaps moreso. Her devotion and sacrifice illustrates one of the central themes of his work, as also shown in the films in the Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women boxed set [review], where they get to take center stage themselves. As Otoku, Kakuko Mori gives an appropriately quiet, often unassuming, but deeply felt performance. How much of the others’ willingness to try to elevate her husband is based on their sympathy for her more than their liking of Kiku? Probably most of it.

She is the best example of humanity amongst people whose job it is to reflect our own humanity back at us. Not that there is any lack of it amongst the other characters in The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum. What Mizoguchi has avoided is making the performers and stagehands seem alien; they aren’t grifters or fakes or exaggerated. Instead, they are warm and relatable, and as Kiku rises to his apex at film’s end, the filmmaker reminds us that regardless of this success, regardless of what we project on these performers, a star can also experience genuine pain.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

SILENT OZU - THREE CRIME DRAMAS: THAT NIGHT'S WIFE - ECLIPSE SERIES 42

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend the SanFrancisco Silent Film Festival, three days and four nights of movies spanning genre and international borders. Among the selections was one of Yasujiro Ozu's early efforts, That Night’s Wife, which also so happens to be part of the Eclipse boxed set, Silent Ozu - Three Crime Dramas.

I've had my eye on that collection for some time, and based on That Night’s Wife, it's one I should move to the top of my Eclipse wish list. Based on a Hollywood picture the director read about in a movie magazine, this lean melodrama blends the best of Ozu's family matters with a noirish crime story. When examining this 1930 release, one can neatly cleave these two elements in half, particularly as the criminal activity itself is relegated to the front of the narrative.

Tokihika Okada (Tokyo Song) plays Shuji, the distraught father of a sick child. Finding himself short of funds to pay the doctor bills, Shuji heads out into the night to commit a robbery. He gets the cash, but not before the cops get wind of his heist. A foot chase through the streets ensues, with the amateur thief ducking down shadowy alleys and into phone booths to get an update from the hospital. Ozu abstracts the crime, adopting a nigh-surrealistic montage of still shots and extreme angles, like a fragmented testimony of a traumatic experience. It's mostly more desperate than dangerous--though that does add some tension to the robbery itself. Like poker, crime is better undertaken by professionals.

The second half of the movie is equally tense in theory, though less so in practice. Paced more like one of Ozu's post-War family stories, the back of That Night’s Wife is isolated to the family apartment where the little girl is convalescing. Shuji is followed home by a detective (Togo Yamamoto) determined to bring him and the money in. Some negotiating and the occasional metaphorical table turned buy the fugitive a few hours. The cop will wait to make his arrest until the doctor visits in the morning.

As nerve-wracking as that sounds, Ozu never leans heavily into the potential for violence. Everyone is more polite about it, partially to avoid waking the little girl, but mostly this is on Ozu. Perhaps were this a sound picture the dialogue could have bridged the gap, and we might better understand the meeting of the minds between the distraught mother and the cop. The main battle of wills here is not between Shoji and Detective Kagawa, but between the officer and the mother, Mayumi (Emiko Yagumo). As in many stories of this kind, the woman is the true backbone, holding together her family while her husband makes all the wrong choices. As an actress, Yagumo has an understated strength that makes her ideally suited for Ozu, so it’s surprising that she did not appear in more of his films (she’s also in Tokyo Song). Though Mayumi tries a thing or two more powerful than mere persuasion, like her husband, her amateur status gets in the way.

Still, there is a sunrise around the corner, and though some may find Ozu’s own lack of criminal acumen anticlimactic (and, indeed, the final scenes do drag out too long), there is something altogether pleasing about seeing this master tackle genre in his own inimitable fashion.

KINOSHITA AND WORLD WAR II: PORT OF FLOWERS/THE LIVING MAGOROKU - ECLIPSE SERIES 41

The interesting thing about boxed sets sometimes is, if you’re not familiar with a particular filmmaker, they offer a crash course in his or her themes and style. You can build a foundation, either creating a starting point for further exploration (example: other Eclipse bundles like Early Bergman [review] or The First Films of Samuel Fuller [review]) or provide a broad overview, leaving you to fill in the gaps later (The Essential Jacques Demy [review 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]).

With Japanese director Keisuke Kinoshita, my only prior experience had been with Twenty-Four Eyes [review], his 1954 film about a small-town schoolteacher. It was an assured drama lacking in histrionics, focusing instead on the common and, arguably, the banal--though, the “everyday” might be a more accurate term, as the small things are given equal weight to the stuff of bigger film narratives. One can immediately see the roots for that kind of storytelling in Kinoshita’s initial films, collected here under the banner Kinoshita and World War II. Indeed, the five films in this, the forty-first Eclipse collection, were made during and just after the war, and reflect Japanese life as it was being lived at the time.

The lead feature is 1943’s Port of Flowers, a seemingly light-hearted movie about two inept con men descending on an island town in hope of bilking the residents out of their hard-earned money. Shuzo (Eitaro Ozawa, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs [review]) and Tomekichi (Ken Uehara, Mr. Thank You [review]) mistakenly try to pull the same ruse. Having discovered that, at one time, an industrialist tried to build a shipyard in this village, only to have the Great Depression wash his dreams away, both men arrive within hours of each other claiming to be the son no one knew the industrialist had. Rather than blow the scheme, the two crooks pretend to be brothers, finding that the love the village had for their alleged father is so great, they are more than willing to believe anything.

They are also more than willing to drop every yen they have to help make the shipyard a reality, and before the con artists realize, they have more cash than they know what to do with. These small-time operators are not prepared for a big score, and fear that they’ll only mess it up. Add to that the charms of village life, and particularly the island women, and they start to have second thoughts about disappearing with the bounty.

Up until this point, Port of Flowers is fairly innocuous, offering only a slight social critique, particularly in relation to a young woman who had left the island in search of a more cosmopolitan existence, only to be sent back under questionable circumstances. There is also a division made between her brother (Chishu Ryu, Equinox Flower, Late Autumn, etc. [reviews]) and the other villagers, as he was able to go to Tokyo and attend college (an accomplishment the con men can’t even claim). Education is poised against traditional values. In its early stages, I assumed Port of Flowers was heading toward State and Main territory: the self-important city folk would find themselves taken advantage of by the country bumpkins.

That all changes on December 7, 1941. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the expansion of the war, a nationalistic surge takes over the town, and the con men find themselves swept up in it. If they can build a ship for real, the country could use it, and they can serve in their own small way.

It’s fascinating to see a story about Japanese patriots during the conflict, particularly as the war was still going while Kinoshita was making his film. Had Port of Flowers been made even a couple of years later, the drama would have a different tenor. As they say, the victors get to write history, and so most Japanese stories that followed show the regret and misgivings that were deemed appropriate in peacetime. Think of how some American pundits reacted to Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises [review] last year because its main character never questioned how the planes he was building would be used, and then imagine Port of Flowers being released today. Doesn’t it make sense that the Japanese citizenry would want their country to thrive and prosper and ultimately win? It’s no different than what Clint Eastwood was trying to do by leaving the politics out of American Sniper [review], and look how that turned out.

The thing is, there are no politics presented here, no anti-American or European rhetoric, just average folks seeing the direction their nation was heading and trying to do their part. Kinoshita avoids making the movie propaganda in this way, as opposed to say the straight-up rallying in something like Powell and Pressburger’s 49th Parallel [review]. While Kinoshita did have to get the approval of the government censorship board before making Port of Flowers, it doesn’t feel like he was being swayed to deliver a particular message.

Though, if he had to cut some things here or there, that might explain the abruptness of the ending. Without giving too much away, the con men disappear from the island before the ship they caused to be built is launched--and, indeed, on the same day some of the local fishermen are attacked by Allied submarines--without much explanation. We can fill in some of the pieces, but not to any exact detail. It’s almost like a reel, or at least a scene or two, is missing.

But then, if there is anything to quibble over in Port of Flowers, it’s some of  Kinoshita’s clumsy edits. Most noticeable are the times he tries to build tension by quick cuts that are so quick, they are practically subliminal. These mostly involve the local policeman, whom Kinoshita wishes to make an object of fear for his bumbling bad guys. Most of the rest of the movie has a much more patient mis-en-scene, more akin to Ozu, and thus it makes these sudden flashes of Hitchcockian style all the more jarring.

That said, the first-time director shows some flashes of ambition that work quite well. The natural setting, including the realistic sets, and the way Kinoshita handles the countryside, including bad weather, shows a confidence learned from his previous years as an apprentice. There is also one very effective sequence where the old woman Okano (Chieko Higashiyama, Tokyo Story [review]) relates memories of time spent with the real shipbuilder. She tells the story while on a carriage, and the scenery outside changes from the island view to a rear projection of a life she imagines for herself and her lost love in far away locales. It’s a pretty obvious technique to modern eyes, but it creates a dreaminess that perfectly evokes the feeling of having spent decades pining for what might have been. The effect is helped by Higashiyama’s careful performance. It’s a rare moment of vulnerability for a character who otherwise keeps her guard up. She is quite good, as are Ozawa and Uehara. The duo are subtly comic, avoiding going too broad, and thus making the poor intentioned thieves sympathetic rather than pitiable.

Nationalism is far less of a subtle topic in Kinoshita’s follow-up. Made the same year as Port of Flowers, The Living Magoroku is a propagandist fable, the kind of thing that might have run as a short subject between the cartoon and the main feature in wartime Hollywood, but here extended to full length.

The gist is this: in a rural community, the Onagi family maintains the same farmland that their ancestors fought on nearly 400 years prior. The Living Magoroku even opens with a flashback to samurai clashing on the meadow before cutting to modern-day warriors training for combat in the wilderness nearby. Superstition has left the family’s field untouched all this time. They believe that to break the ground would be to violate the spirits of the ancestors who fell there. The clan is currently overseen by its widowed matriarch (Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Apart From You [review]), who also believes she lost her husband at a young age, as the family has lost all of their men, for even thinking of violating the curse. Her own son, Yoshihiro (Yasumi Hara), believes he is suffering from lung disease. Outside influence is pushing him to cultivate the land, but he is scared.

Enter an army doctor (Toshio Hosokawa) and an ambitious sergeant (Uehara). Both are visiting the Onagi homestead for a similar reason. The doctor is looking to buy a vintage sword from the family, as he foolishly sold his own and needs to restore the lost heirloom and his good name; the sergeant believes he also has such a sword and wants it appraised. Between the two of them, they will sway mother and son to do the right thing.

The Living Magoroku was written by Kinoshita, as well as directed, and he attempts to stack the narrative, creating an ensemble of characters with similar goals and faults to match the Japanese climate of the period. The Living Magoroku consistently works on two levels, each chafing against the other, its own narrative locked in conflict. Kinoshita seeks a balance between tradition and necessity, superstition and reason, honor and pragmatism. Much like the educated man was seen as the voice of civilization in Port of Flowers, so too does logic and experience hold sway here. Land, armor, and weaponry are all things to be revered, but the battlefield is not as important as the fields where the citizenry lives and eats. Nor is sacrifice made only on the front lines.

This is the ultimate thrust of The Living Magoroku: each person must do his or her part, even if they don’t like it. Again, consider American drives for tin and rubber, or warnings how “loose lips sink ships,” the person next to you in this theater may be a spy. It’s not at all subtle, neither in its message nor even in its drama. (And, at its worst, the acting can either be stiff or corny in equal measures; at its best, unmannered and naturalistic.) Still, Kinoshita strives to find the humanity in it all. The personal cost can be repaid, and the group effort leads to extensive bonds. The sergeant strives to unite two young lovers who are unable to marry due to the argument over the land, and the doctor not only restores his family name, but he extends that family when it’s all said and done.

Though the writing seems heavy at times, the overall structure of The Living Magoroku is slick, with Kinoshita confining the action to a few small places, and also isolating the timeframe to two separate visits from both the army men. He also shows an increased movement through the scenes, including elegant pans from one happening to another, like moving from the ground up to spy through a window, creating an overall feeling of connectedness and realism. This is one world he’s operating in, one community. Likewise the visual connections between past and present, the objects and artifacts echoing back to those brief battlefield moments reminding us just how present history is in the day-to-day.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review. The stills shown are taken from the standard-definition DVD release and not the Blu-ray under discussion.