Miss Oyu

Miss Oyu (お遊さま) is a 1951 film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi and based on Junichiro Tanizaki's 1932 novella entitled The Reed Cutter (蘆刈). The story revolves around two sisters and their relationship with a man named Shinnosuke. He falls in love with the older and more refined yet childish sister, Oyū Kayukawa, but although she's a widow he's unable to marry her since she has a son from her previous marriage—a custom of some upper crust families at the time (early Meiji era) that disallowed women to remarry while caring for a paternal orphan.

Shizu, the younger woman, is heartbroken by her sister's loneliness and misery and determined to sacrifice her own happiness for Oyū. Shinnosuke, after having met with a number of prospective marriage partners, and choosing none, at first mistakes Oyū for her sister, Shizu, with whom he was supposed to meet. Eventually Shinnosuke and Shizu marry, but on their wedding night they agree that the marriage will be "formal" rather than romantic. In other words, Shizu and Shinnosuke will be "brother and sister" while acting under the eyes of society as a happy, upstanding husband and wife. This is so Oyū and Shinnosuke, the true lovers, can spend time together. Oyū is unaware of their pact.

As you might expect from a Mizoguchi-Tanizaki combo, the results here are tragic. Oyū and Shinnosuke must ultimately separate for the sake of social decency. This is after her son dies, partly due to her neglect and lapse of duty. Another son is on the way though. Between Shizu and Shinnosuke, surprisingly, years later, after they have finally entered into some form of intimacy. Times are economically tough for them. They've moved far away and haven't spoken with Oyū for years. The big problem, however, is that Shizu can't take being a mother and wife, and the role in time kills her. It seems she was only able to draw happiness in a sacrificial role, for her sister. In despair, Shinnosuke finds Oyū's home and leaves the newborn for her to find outside. He won't talk to her. Just leaves the baby in the care of a woman responsible for her own son's death. Then off he goes, to wander despairingly among the tall reeds between beach and mountains.

There's plenty that could be written about the film. Like how Mizoguchi has used scenes of nature, either kempt and well-ordered or wild and jumbled, to parallel and drive the plot. Or those potent tracking shots, close-ups, and framing. Or the part of sex, if any, or asexuality, in the story. Or a comparison between the film and novella. But Mizoguchi particularly focused on portraying the peeling away and defiance of social rules as a necessity for love and freedom. And also how these rules tamp down the human spirit, leading to forms of deviance, possibly a greater moral decay, certainly psychological trauma, and then solitude and certain death.

This isn't my favorite Mizoguchi, but it won't slip easily from memory. Quite a few scenes show an idyllic Japan, with bucolic vistas and lush gardens and exquisite homes. It's as visually interesting as its story is compelling. Then there are the musical performances, reminiscent of other Mizoguchi films, like in The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939) and The Water Magician (1933). Oyū plays the koto. And other songs are used to tell, rather than just add to, the narrative. A good film by one of Japan's greatest directors.

Souls on the Road

Souls on the Road (Rojō no Reikon), directed by Minoru Murata and released in 1921, is one of Japan’s best remembered silent films and considered among the first steps towards a distinctly Japanese cinematic culture.

When his career as a violinist ends in disgrace as he collapses on stage in the capital, Koichiro returns to his mountain village on foot with his wife and daughter. At a crossroads in a snowy forest on the way, they're accosted by a pair of recently released convicts. The men, one lame and the other tubercular, both dejected and desperate, attempt to rob the weary family, but seeing how badly in shape they are offer them a chunk of bread instead, before limping off in another direction.

Koichiro arrives at the village on Christmas Eve but is soon rejected by his father. The ex-cons are discovered by the master of another house who, presumably, has caught them trying to sneak inside someplace to escape the winter storm that's coming. At rifle point, he forces the men to take turns beating each other with a switch.

The violinist’s daughter has a fever, but Koichiro's father shows no mercy, kicking the lot of them out into the inclement weather. They shelter in a barn while a boisterous party kicks off in a house that has been quite immoderately decorated for Christmas. The joy of the revelers, streamers hanging around their heads as they dance, is shown in stark contrast to the misery of the now febrile and fading wife and daughter, whose heads appear wreathed by strands of cold, limp hay.

Towards the end, a young boy and girl, the former loyal and hardworking throughout the film and the latter naïvely self-indulgent and frivolous, come to a spot in the woods where a body has been found in the snow. For a fleeting moment the character of each—both static up until then—is interrupted by a pondering of what if's. What if the master of the house had shown mercy? What if the father had shown compassion? A Maxim Gorky quote about compassion and missed opportunity follows to end the film.

Souls on the Road is visually compelling in its storytelling and in the emotions of characters, the rural setting and way of life, and the mix of traditional and foreign clothing. We can see the frenzy of the storm and ghostlike visions which fade in and out and, surprisingly, Santa Claus as well. Laced with sentimentality but not gushing with it, as Japanese films tend to do, Murata gives us a fairly straight telling of the shepherd’s lost sheep, here the prodigal son and the marginalized, and dips it in the inhumanity of the unmerciful and those who turn a blind eye.

Santa Claus appearance in Souls on the Road (1921)

Onibaba

Onibaba (鬼婆, 1964) is a Japanese horror film directed by Kaneto Shindo. Set during the aftermath of a fourteenth century civil war near Kyoto, the story focuses on two (nameless) women who kill soldiers for their weapons and gear. They live in a hut surrounded by a seemingly boundless and inescapable sea of tall grass. There’s a deep hole in there too, which is where they drop their stripped victims before trading the booty for millet and the occasional fowl.

When the slovenly Hachi comes back from the war, he’s without Kishi. Kishi was the young woman’s husband and old woman’s son, but he was killed trying to steal food from a bunch of fed-up farmers. Hachi takes a liking to the young woman, and the old woman tries to put a stop to the grimy affaire de coeur that ensues between this bumpkin pair. She fears that if she can’t end it, then the hard-working young girl will take off for good, leaving her to fend for herself and to likely starve. Solution... Wear a devil mask, hide out in the grass at night, and scare the bejeezus out of the girl whenever she slinks off to lay Hachi. And this works fine till the old woman finds herself out in the pouring rain one night and the mask becomes ruinously affixed to her face.

This is a horror film, but not because anything in it is actually supernatural. We always know it’s the baba pretending to be the oni, that it’s not a real devil. What's unsettling is the photography, especially the shots of the never-ending grass they live in, and the hole, which for the first half of the film appears to be bottomless (unfortunately the narrative didn’t allow for it to be that way). Also the poverty and ignorance of the characters is disturbing and a horror in itself. All in all, I thought it was a good film, and memorable, but not one of the Japanese greats of the genre.