Kazabana

Years ago, Ineko Arima and her lover threw themselves into a river. She survived. Later, when she gave birth, the boy's paternal grandfather registered his name as 'Suteo' -- literally, "Throw Away". For nineteen years, they have been the dishonored members of the family, forced to eat apart. It's not that the family is in such great shape. Once they owned 10,000 hectares of rice fields, but that was expropriated. Now they live in a big house, gone ramshackle, training their legitimate grand daughter, Yoshiko Kuga, as if they were still wealthy and it was a hundred years ago, trying to get the scion of a rich, old family to marry her. She's a dutiful girl, and the only one of the family who cares for her despised cousin and his mother. Then she gives a dance recital; her grandmother, Chieko Higashiyama tells her that a young man from a good (i.e. wealthy) family, who is considering marrying her, will be in the audience.

Writer-director Keisuke Kinoshita has written and directed a rich heart-breaker of a movie, full of subtext that I can dimly see, but can't grasp very well. He seems to have had Dickens' GREAT EXPECTATIONS in mind, with Yûsuke Kawazu as a Pip-like Suteo, with no expectations at all once Miss Kuga, a warm-hearted Estella, leaves this home, which suggests Miss Havisham's, with its clinging to a grouchily remembered past. I'm sure it appealed to its Japanese audience, but I lack the context to grasp it. It still held me, with its beautiful images and the two loving women who sustain the bewildered central character.

A fairly decent melodrama that centres on a young couple who have a suicide pact (it's a pretty grim movie), with the man dying but the woman surviving. She's pregnant with his child, and this causes conflict between her and the dead man's family. There are quite a few characters despite the simple premise and brief runtime of just 78 minutes, which can make things feel a little overstuffed.

Still, the core story is decently told, and I liked the performances and the way it looked. I feel a similar way about it as I do with most of the films directed by Keisuke Kinoshita - it ends up being a little less than the sum of its parts, but at least some of those parts are easy to admire.

Kinoshita Keisuke was the most well-regarded director at Shochiku next to Ozu, though the quality of his work is very uneven. Kinoshita worked in different genres and different styles, though most of his best films cold be classified as melodramas. "Kazabana" (The Snow Flurry, 1959) is melodrama in the vein of Douglas Sirk. The story takes place in a small rural community, where a rich family lives. The narrative is structured through flashbacks, and the story starts from its very end. As it is something of a mystery, I will not enclose plot details, except that the film looks at class differences and their effect on love.

The film was shot in Shochiku GrandScope by cinematographer Kusuda Hiroshi, a Kinoshita regular. The autumnal color palette makes this one of the most eye-pleasing films made during the golden years of Japanese cinema. There are different shades of blue and brown, that make the locations of the film correlate with the emotional bleakness experienced by the characters. Unfortunately the characters themselves aren't that colorful, but instead very black and white. The rich are portrayed as selfish, vain, and mean, whereas the poor characters played by Kishi Keiko and Kawasu Yusuke are shown to live without hope. One would think that the flashback structure was there to add depth to these characters, but instead I felt like the purpose was to conceal the lack of psychological nuances. Also the structure makes you expect a twist of some sort, another thing that the film lacks.

I compared this film to Douglas Sirk, whom it resembles both because of the visual style and the themes of the storyline. However, this film lacks Sirk's angst, and his detailed social commentary. "Kazabana" is a brooding, sad affair, that presents a world where social reformation is not an option, since the cards have already been dealt. It is interesting to think how other Japanese directors of the time would have handled this. Imai Tadashi would have made this angrier and more political, Ozu would have given characters also sympathetic sides, Naruse would have better made the pain experienced by the characters feel universal. The middle-of-the-road approach by Kinoshita, who does not even choose a clear main protagonist for the film, ultimately looks pretty but says very little. This is sad, because besides the colors, the actors Kinoshita has assembled form a very stellar Shochiku all-star cast.

Snow Flurry is a flawed movie but its strengths are reason enough to watch it. The plot of the movie is about an old aristocratic family that lives in the countryside. The years after World War II have reduced the family's fortunes, but the elders' pride and inability to let go of he past make life miserable for everyone in the family, particularly the two youngest members. The director, Kinoshita, specialized in location shooting and this movie is another great example of his work. The movie is in color and cinema scope and the cinematography is beautiful. It alone makes the movie worth watching; there isn't a shot in this movie that isn't exquisite. The music is also very nice and the structure of the storyline is very interesting. The movie jumps back and forth in time with little or no indication. It's a little jarring at first, but it does help build a little suspense. The storyline itself, though, is no great shakes and it isn't helped by a lead male character whose passivity borders on catatonia. But overall, the good points of this movie outweigh its bad points and it should be seen by anyone who loves a good visual experience.

A moving melodrama from Kinoshita. It's not quite up there with his very best (24 Eyes, The Ballad of Narayama, A Legend - Or Was It?), but it's not too far off. In fact, I wonder if it might benefit from a second viewing. My main problem with the film is that it was a little hard to follow in its first half. It uses a pretty complex flashback structure, jumping back in forth between three time periods, which seems pretty unique for the time. I had a difficult time pinning down who was who for that first half or so before it settles down into the present for its second half. The story follows a disgraced woman (Keiko Kishi) and her son (played as an 18 year-old by Yusuke Kawazu). Kishi became pregnant by the son of the richest man in town (a small town somewhere outside of Nagano). That son was expected to join the military (presumably sometime during WWII), and he and Kishi decide to commit double suicide since their union would never be blessed. Kishi survives, though, and she and her son are begrudgingly accepted into the rich family's home - or at least their small guest house. Both are treated badly. The modern plot line follows a now 18 year-old Kawazu, still mistreated by his father's family, falling in love with his cousin (Yoshiko Kuga). The disgrace that has haunted him his whole life becomes more and more inescapable. The film is gorgeously shot. Chishu Ryu also has a small role.