Lost In Translation

Criterion Eclipse Series 15: Travels With Hiroshi Shimizu

Hiroshi Shimizu was a contemporary of Yasujiro Ozu during the heyday of the silent films of the 30s and is virtually unknown outside of Japan. Criterion has collected four of his films in Eclipse Series 15: Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu. The films are: Japanese Girls At The Harbor (1933), Mr. Thank You (1936), The Masseurs And A Woman (1938), and Ornamental Hairpin (1941). Shimizu has a flair for framing scenes, mise-en-scene, using outdoor locations, and editing that brought the narrative together. It seems that the prodigious Shimizu (he made over 100 films and often as many as ten a year) often focused on outsiders and made social commentary in most of his films. All the films have informative essays written by Michael Koresky, a staff writer for Criterion.

In his silent film, Japanes Girls At The Harbor, Shimizu telsl the story of a love triangle that has its origins in Yokohoma. There are many sumptuous shots of the surrounding hills and harbor of Yokohoma throughout the film as we see Sunako's (Michiko Oikawa) downfall related to her relationship with a petty criminal, Henry (Urero Ugawa). She wounds her rival, the worldly Yoko Sheridan (Ranko Sawa), with Henry's pistol in a fit of jealousy. Sunako has no choice but to go on the run and to work as a bar hostess to survive. Meanwhile, Henry goes straight and marries Sunako's best friend Dora (Yukiko Inuoe). Sunako returns to Yokohoma with a starving artist in tow and reunites with the couple causing strife in their relationship. They urge her to give up her wicked ways and go straight, which she finally tries to do in the end as she leaves Yokohoma for her new life.

Mr. Thank You (1936) is based on a four page short story by writer Yasunari Kawabata. The "Mr. Thank You" in this story is a kindly bus driver who shouts "Thank you!" to everyone who yields right of way to his bus, he also delivers messages for people living along the route, and even delivers records to those who can't afford to take the bus into the city to buy them. Among the passengers on this particular trip are: an open-minded modern girl, a close-minded lecherous mustachioed insurance salesman, and a mother accompanying a young daughter whom she intends to sell into prostitution. This is not Ozu territory, furthermore, according to the accompanying essay Shimizu made an impromptu scene, after a chance encounter with Korean laborers on the shoot, in which the driver has a nice conversation with a young Korean woman. As Koresky states, the inclusion alone is worthy for representing a dispossessed and marginalized minority on screen and their essentialist for clearing a road for the Japanese-showing Shimizu's humanity. Shimizu has utilized these road encounters by showing the under developed countryside that was still living in the past. In the end the girl is saved from her fate as a plaything for men. The film is another triumph for the director.

The Masseurs And A Woman (1938) is another story of a fallen woman. In this story that takes place at an onsen inn in Izu, two blind masseurs have several encounters with guests: a mysterious woman from Tokyo, a man with his adopted nephew, and some students  out on a hiking trip. There is a rash of thefts and one of the masseurs suspects the mysterious woman who turns out to be running from her benefactor, as she is a kept woman. The film ends on an ambiguous note ala Naruse. The film has lots of great location shots from Izu.

Shimizu's masterpiece might be Ornamental Hair Pin (1941), which is another film set at a hot springs inn and concerns another fallen women, Kinuyo Tanaka, playing a geisha that has left her patron and hopes to start a new life. There are a whole host of characters: a cranky professor, an aging grandfather and his two grandsons, a henpecked husband and wife, and most importantly a wounded soldier played by a youthful Chisu Ryu-who later go  onto to become one of Ozu's favorite actors. The slight fare of this films can be contrasted with the fact that Japan was at war at the time of the filming, but seems far removed from this slice of life at an onsen and the suspense of whether the soldier will propose to the one time geisha. The ambiguous endings remind one of Ozu and Naruse, but the constant use of fallen women is more reminiscent of Mizoguchi. Shimizu deserve greater recognition, hopefully, more films will be released and seen in the west in the future.

I Was Born, But...

It seems that the silent film I Was Born, But... (1932), from Eclipse Series 10: Silent Ozu) marks a departure for celebrated director Yasujiro Ozu. It was his first social commentary picture. He had intended it as a comedy about children, but it became a dark film about adults, compromise, and survival. That being said it does have an episodic quality to it, but by far the most powerful episode revolves around the discovery of by the salaryman protagonist Yoshii's sons, that their father has a subservient position in society and must kowtow to another neighborhood child's father who is his superior at the office. This is displayed in that superior's home movies where he goads Yoshii to mug for the camera and the boys are aghast by it and go on a hunger strike after throwing tantrums. In the end it is peacefully resolved among the family members, but difficult lessons about society and the world have been learned.

Black River

I really found Masaki Kobayashi's film, Black River (1956), to be a fascinating look at corruption and moral decay set on the outskirts of the American Atsugi Naval base. It is the third film in the Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System. This film anticipates Shohei Imamura's break through film of the same theme, 1962's Pigs and Battleships. The films begins with Saul Bass-like images of cutouts accompanied by a jazzy atoanal score during the credits sequence and this sets the tone for the noir-like exploration of moral degradation surrounding the American naval base. A place where shady dealings in sex, black markets goods, extortion, and other crimes freely take place day in and day out. This film is also auspicious for being the great Tatsuya Nakadai's first starring role (he would go onto star in Kobayashi's seminal films The Human Condition and Hara-kiri). In this film Kobayashi presents several personal stories including that of a love triangle between Nakadai's yakuza, Killer Joe, a local girl (Ineko Arima) and a student (Fumio Watanabe). Add to this is Killer Joe's plan to turn out the residents of a slum apartment for a unscrupulous landlady (Isuzu Yamada). They attempt to stop this behind the organization of a zanichi communist, but fail. Some of the other colorful characters are the devoted house husband, whose wife is prostituting herself behind his back, a pimp, and variety of other misfits. It is a record of a bygone era when people were still desperate before the Japanese capitalist miracle had taken place.

I Will Buy You

The second film in the Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System I watched was I Will Buy You (1956). This is a critique of the professional baseball industry. It is not a typical baseball film in that the baseball star is on the periphery. It focuses on the process to sign the college slugger Kurita (Minoru Ooki) as told by fictional Tokyo Flowers scout Kishimoto (Keiji Sada). He must maneuver in between his benefactor Kyuki (Yunosuke Ito), Kurita's  girlfriend Fueko (Keiko Kishi), as well as his family. It is not so easy to determine who  the villains and the honest people are by the end of the film, but it is a sort of criticism of capitalist society as writ by the pro baseball industry in Japan. Kobayashi is almost a forgotten breed of filmmaker-one who had something to say about society.

The Thick-Walled Room

The Thick-Walled Room (1956) is the first film I watched in the Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System (The Thick-Walled Room, I Will Buy You, Black River, The Inheritance). It is a brave film in that it takes on some controversial material by confronting the idea that Japanese soldiers that were following orders of their superiors were being punished as scapegoats for the war crimes perpetrated by others. Apparently the screenplay is based on the prison diaries of B and C class war criminals. Even though the American occupation had ended in 1952, the Japanese government feared that The Thick-Walled Room’s controversial message would offend the U.S. and demanded that Shochiku either cut or withhold it. Kobayashi was  not willing to alter the film, so it was held until 1956. This is considered Kobayashi's first serious film and the first in which he had control over the production after making a couple of light comedies. This early film shows that Kobayashi is hell bent on critiquing society, but he does it in a manner that is not preachy or in your face. This is true of his critique of war in The Human Condition and his critique of feudal society in Harikiri.

Eclipse Sereis 17: Nikkatsu Noir

Criterion released a new collection of action films in 2009 produced by the Nikkatsu film studio in the 50s and 60s, Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir. The set includes the following films: I Am Waiting (1957) directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara, Rusty Knife  (1958) directed by Toshio Masuda, Take Aim At The Police Van (1960) directed by Seijun Suzuki, Cruel Gun Story (1964) directed by Takuma Furakawa, and A Colt Is My Passport (1967). Each film has some comments by noted Asian film critic Chuck Stephens. These films were considered to be "Borderless" action films (mukokuseki). One aspect of the films I like is that they show what Japan looked like in the 50s and 60s with all the location shots. The series gets progressively better from the first film to the last film.

I Am Waiting is the debut of director Kurahara and stars Yujiro Ishihara as a restaurant manager and former boxer who helps club hostess (Mie Kitahara another familiar face in mukokuseki films) try to escape the clutches of her gangster employer. Yokohoma is the noir stand in for NY in this film that presents a darker brooding Ishihara, who was a film superstar at this point. The protagonist is waiting for his brother to send for him after buying a farm in Brazil, perhaps a stand in for Mexico as the place of escape for Japanese noir.

Rusty Knife directed by Masuda also stars Yujiro Ishihara and fellow top Nikkatsu star Akira Kobayashi, and they play former hoodlums trying to leave behind a life of crime working at a bar. However, they are sought out as witness to a murder and are drawn back into the world of crime. Joe Shishido has a small role as a blackmailer and will become a star under Suzuki.

 Take Aim At The Police Van is a film by the most well-known mukokuseki director Seijun Suzuki. This film is more of a detective mystery when a prison truck is attacked and convict murdered. The penitentiary guard on duty (the middle aged Michitaro Mizushima) is accused of negligence and suspended which allows him to get to the bottom of the crime. Stephens point out some of the outre visual shenanigans by Suzuki: the gunman who strokes the  rifle's stock lovingly before putting his gum on the scope for safekeeping and the onsen hooker who lurches out of the private show lie St. Sebastian with an arrow stuck in her chest.

Cruel Gun Story by Furukawa stars Shishido as a freshly released ex-con sprung to do a job for a mob boss. So this is essentially a heist story about robbing a an armoreed car carrying racetrack receipts.It seems to owe something to Kubrick's The Killing with its meticulously planned heist. It takes place in the abandoned US Army party town Yamato (my old friend Arie's former place of residence). The double and triple crosses also bring to mind The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre.

The best film in the series is Nomura's A Colt Is My Passport also starring Joe Shishio. It is the story of a hardboiled hitman caught between two warring yakuza families. It has  great spaghetti western tinged soundtrack and takes place on the seaside near Yokohoma as the hitman and his protege try to escape Japan by boat. It finishes with a great and inventive climax.

The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail

The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail (1945) is Akira Kurosawa's fourth film and a part of Criterion's Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa (with Sanshiro Sugata, The Most Beautiful, and Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two). it is a curious film in several respects since it was filmed during Japan's surrender on a restricted budget. It was kept off the American censor's list, because some felt that Kurosawa wasn't being respectful of the origins of the story which was staged in Kabuki and Noh versions.  Therefore it wasn't shown until 1952, however Kurosawa maintained that this was not so. He was being more true to the Noh version, of which he preferred and found more artful than Kabuki. That being said it is also his shortest film coming in at under an hour, and also a comedy and musical. Perhaps, his intent was to entertain people after the hardships of the war and defeat.

The Most Beautiful

The Most Beautiful (1944) is Akira Kurosawa's second film and a documentary like propaganda film at that. It is included in the Criterion Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa (Sanshiro Sugata / The Most Beautiful / Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two / The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail). Already Kurosawa is employing techniques he would master in his classic masterpieces years later. He uses techniques like cutting action forward to be more efficient with story telling. He also uses short cuts for flashback sequences that suggest the past rather than relive it. The story is basic. It is about a precision lens factory that is staffed by women who make great sacrifices to keep up with production for the war effort. Many consider it one of Kurosawa's minor works, but already his genius is showing. It is also of note that after the film he married one of the actresses from the film,Yoko Yaguchi.

Three Resurrected Drunkards

The last film in Criterion's Eclipse Series 21: Oshima's Outlaw Sixties was Three Resurrected Drunkards (1968). It is probably one of his strangest films about three students who go for a swim in Kyushu and have their clothes stolen by two AWOL  Korean soldiers who were trying to escape fighting in Vietnam for the US. Almost halfway through the film it restarts and the story unfolds in a different manner than the previous run through. Oshima is making statements about the treatment of Korean immigrants, global policies of the US in a manner that is far from conventional. (I had previously seen Sing A Song Of Sex (1967) and choose not to re-watch it this time).

Japanese Summer: Double Suicide

Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (1967) is one of the films in the Criterion Eclipse Series 21: Oshima's Outlaw Sixties series. It is a visually impressive film with great framing shots and something of an allegorical film, although I'm still trying to work out exactly how. There seems to be some obsession with the Japanese "death drive," but the lone female played by Keiko Sakurai is obsessed with sex and she cannot find fulfillment with the suicidal AWOL soldier played by Kei Sato. Several of the other characters of the gang that are looking for violence seem to represent certain aspect of the society-the aging yakuza with eh gun, the gun crazy 17 year old, Television, the bandit, the "oni." Then there's the troubling Caucasian foreigner who is randomly killing people which is referred to being like the assassination in Dallas by the commenter on the TV. It is a curious film-one that I'm not sure I fully understand. At some point I might have to give it a second viewing, but there's a stack of movies waiting in the meantime.