Ballad of Orin

Ballad of Orin (1977) is yet another masterwork from Masahiro Shinoda. The cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon) is stunning as is the frequent collaborator Toru Takemitsu's score. And the film is anchored by Shindoa's wife, Shima Iwashita, as the unlucky Orin who was orphaned and left with a troupe of "goze," or itinerant entertainers, one of the few options available for a blind woman at this time. As a goze she has taken a vow of celibacy and will be exiled from the traveling troupe if she sleeps with a man. Inevitably she is borderline raped and is cast out from the group and admits to sleeping with any man in order to feel less alone, this si revealed through flashbacks after she meets a drifter (Yoshio Harada) with mysterious past who becomes her guide and protector. He says he will only guide Orin if they act like brother and sister and says if they sleep together he will have to leave. He buys tools and becomes a geta (clogs) repairer with Orin as his assistance and she no longer has to sing for supper. This represents the happiest time of Orin's life, but it is short-lived as the man's anger and brute strength gets him into trouble. And eventually his identity as a deserter from the army, where he took money form a rich man to take the place of his son in the Russo-Japanese war. In a sense both of them are victims of an indifferent and cruel fate. It is a tragedy and a love story and among Shinoda's finest films.