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Exhaustion of beauty, "lost in the darkness of love." Kyoto during the Heiji Rebellion, a coup dimly glimpsed through a welter of billowing draperies and torn green mats. The loyal samurai (Kazuo Hasegawa) discovers his brother is part of the uprising, "not cowardice, a shrewd strategy," more important is the decoy in the imperial carriage (Machiko Kyo). The maiden is the warrior's choice when he's later asked for a reward, the fact that she's married to the head guard (Isao Yamagata) only heightens his obsession. A little joke to an old general, an all-consuming matter to the infatuated man: "Respond to what's in my heart," he orders the heroine, or precipitate a killing spree. A sustained ornamentation by Teinosuke Kinugasa, a marshaling of aesthetic modes to transmute ukiyo-e into cinema. Scrolls and murals punctuate the flow, brocade silk and veils are virtually supporting players, red architecture exists to contrast against a row of white robes. (Mamoulian's Becky Sharp holds formal sway in the relentless application of Eastman dyes.) Composure is all, "drop your guard and people will pounce." What to do between the unreasonable interloper's desire and the amiable husband's obliviousness, but ride the burden of "feminine virtue" unto death? A scarlet slash on a swordsman's face, a purple banner against a cobalt sky, silhouetted trees filtered golden by bamboo blinds, a precise suite of images for a fable of failed takeovers. The whirlwind of activity at the onset modulates into the tempo rubato of tragedy, building toward a pair of clods at the moonlit courtyard with the realization that neither understood the woman. Clutched necklace, smashed zither: "Why play such a sad song," cf. Les parapluies de Cherbourg. Cinematography by Kohei Sugiyama. With Yataro Kurokawa, Koreya Senda, Jun Tazaki, Kotaro Bando, Masao Shimizu, and Kunitaro Sawamura.
--- Fernando F. Croce |