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The quiet of the opening scene is pierced by a faint but persistent industrial hum, a policeman casually mentions typhoid vaccines. Mizoguchi's Women of the Night is concurrent, and there's Kinuyo Tanaka once more peddling kimonos to make ends meet, again "an easier way" is insinuated. "I'd sell my soul to raise my child," her son's medical bills put maternal dedication to the test. (Her sobs before a mirror turn into the twangy music of the littered pleasure den, where girls play mahjong with clients in between sessions.) Remembrances in the meadow, a screenful of bobbing canoes, the pawned medal like a child's toy. Her lone stint as courtesan exacerbates the shame of the husband (Shuji Sano) who's returning as a defeated soldier, the hopeful image of a half-full bottle of rationed saké at the top of the stairs becomes the ominous portent of a can rolling down the steps. "I wish I could live without worries," everyone's dream. The postwar moment, a placid veneer over a furious vortex, Yasujiro Ozu's rawest work. Regeneration after degradation, a gaping pipe sticks out of the ground to frame passersby. The boy's ball rolls into frame during the veteran's assault on his wife, cf. Lang's M, moths circle a bare light bulb in the aftermath. His visit to the brothel prefigures Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, while waiting he gazes out the window and notices an empty schoolyard, the young prostitute (Chiyoko Fumiya) has her own tale of hardship. ("Rough, isn't it" is all the fellow can say as they share lunch by a riverbank.) "You forgave her but not your wife," notes the co-worker (Chishu Ryu), a battered embrace and the promise to forget make for a most tenuous Happy Ending. With Chieko Murata, Hohi Aoki, Fumiko Okamura, Takeshi Sakamoto, Eiko Takamatsu, Reiko Minakami, and Koji Mitsui. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |