Utau tanuki goten

It's a Japanese musical version of Cinderella. Although the French form of the story is best known, the tale has traveled around the world, picking up bits and pieces of local cultures. Mythographers believe, for example, that the glass slippers were actually fur slippers (French 'verre' and 'vair') and were a Chinese addition, referring to foot binding.

There's nothing about feet here, barring a staircase the heroine and prince run down occasionally, that sounds like a harp, but there are Japanese bits here. Hiroko Takayama, the central character, is a Tanuki, a raccoon dog that can change into a human form, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Tanuki prince. Her evil stepmother is an enchanted teakettle, and a woodcutter is a kappa, a sort of water spirit. Ball gowns are transformed into kimono; the palace looks like a Tokyo night club, and so forth, and the moral of the story - for what fairy tale lacks a moral? - is that true beauty lies not in face or form or cosmetics, but in 'womanliness'. Like all fairy tales, it's intensely normative for its society and audience.

Kimura Keigo was a director who made 51 films between 1930 and 1965, most of them being period films of various sorts. Kimura was not a particularly well-considered director, but he did end up being nominated for Palm d'Or with his film "Sen-hime" (The Princess Sen, 1954). He lost, to Delbert Mann's "Marty". "Utau tanuki goten" (Palace of the Singing Raccoon-Dogs, 1942) was his big wartime hit. It was the first movie he made for Daiei, where he would remain for the rest of his career, Daiei being a studio that specialized in period films. Shortly after this film, Kimura was also summoned for military service.

Calling "Utau tanuki goten" a period film is fitting only in the loosest sense. This is a fairy-tale musical and a romantic fantasy, Japanese attempt at escapism during the hard times. It is a broad variation of the "Cinderella" story-line, with a poor orphan girl Okuro (Takayama Hiroko), whose father has died though still speaks as a gravestone. Okuro lives with her step-family, and the film informs us that they are shape-shifting raccoon-dogs. I was all for this, but the film doesn't make much of it. In a few scenes we see little dog-like masks with the actresses, but only for a glimpse. What they do more is appear out of thin air. Just for kicks I guess. This is, of course, a fairly easy effect to achieve, and the Japanese have applied it for their cinematic fairy-tales since the silent years.

This film is very light, and does not have much of a structure. There are plenty of songs, but usually they last under a minute, so you really can't get in the spirit of them. None of the actors were ones that I recognized, which made the whole less interesting, but I'll give the film this: the wardrobe was very expressive and made the film look more expensive than it probably was. What I found to be a downer was the lack of proper lighting. Much of the film takes place at night, but the general darkness - some of which might be the fault of the existing copy - made the film a tougher watch. Also on this copy, the audio was not the best, so patience and language skills come in handy.

For me, this film didn't really live up to the fairytale films made in other countries at the time (Soviet Union and Germany are just two examples). But it does differ from ordinary Japanese films quite a bit, so I see how it became a hit.