Quand une femme monte l'escalier

Finding Naruse Mikio films has been very, very tough, and after seeing this I'd say it's a tragedy. This is among the most gorgeous dramas I've seen - a brooding and dark melodrama, shot in velvety black and white, with stunning widescreen photography.

Based upon my viewing of this and one other Naruse film (to date), I'd say that Naruse's worldview is considerably more cynical than Ozu or Mizoguchi (both of whom he seems to often draw unfavorable comparisons with, from the relatively few critics to have dug into his work) - the strength of women will be taken for granted, or abused by a hostile world regardless of shrewdness, intellect or beauty, and there is a shy jaded quality to this film that gives it an engaging intensity, that while not nearly as subtle, objective or cerebral as Ozu, IS definitely more passionate. Here, and also in the earlier LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS, Naruse's women are idealized, heroic - symbolic in a larger sense of outsiders or rebels (of any variety) in a social milieu that values discretion and certain forms of conformity above all else.

If you can find this film, I highly recommend it - more of Naruse's work should be made available outside of Japan.

Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (1960), directed by Mikio Naruse, was shown in the United States under the title "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs." The film stars Hideko Takamine, Naruse's muse, as Keiko, the Mama-San of a Tokyo bar.

Although the IMDb plot summary says that Keiko is a geisha, that isn't accurate. Geishas do appear briefly in the movie, but Keiko is actually a bar hostess. As portrayed in the movie, bar hostesses are neither geishas nor prostitutes. Geishas still wear the traditional costume, whereas the bar hostesses are dressed in western fashion. The role of the bar hostess is to flatter the male customers and provide company, but not sex. In fact, Keiko has been celibate since the death of her husband.

These women have a fairly good income, but they usually don't have much cash, because they are expected to live and dress fashionably, and most of their money goes for rent or clothes.

The title "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs" refers to Keiko's thoughts as she climbs the stairs that lead to the bar at which she works. Although Keiko doesn't hate her work, she doesn't enjoy it either. It's a job, and her options as a woman are limited in the Japanese male-dominated society. (Even though Keiko, as Mama-San, has some authority over the other women, the real power resides in the male owner of the bar and his manager.)

The plot of the film resolves around the choices the protagonist must make as she attempts to achieve some measure of happiness and financial stability. As would be expected, these goals are difficult to accomplish for a woman in her situation.

Director Naruse returns in this film to his favorite theme--working-class women who must choose among options that aren't very palatable. What makes this film his masterpiece--in my opinion--are the courage and depth of character that Keiko demonstrates.

Keiko, also known as mama, is one of those truly unforgettable characters who you swear must exist somewhere out there in the real world. She is both strong, graceful and intelligent. This film has an outstanding lead and supporting cast, and ofcourse a great story centering on the day by day account of the life of a bar woman who struggles to maintain her pride. Don't worry, this movie's initially slow pace blossoms with enough twists and surprises to captivate and reward modern viewers.

Other characters to compare Keiko to is Junko, a much younger bar girl, who manages to work the system to her financial advantage. Komatsu, Keiko's manager, a young man smitten by Keiko's enchanting beauty and is reduced to just imagining a future alongside his beloved. Both Junko and Komatsu's youth prove to be of great contrast to Keiko and her wisdom of thiry years. Unlike Keiko, Junko can imagine and realize her simple but dead end dream of opening a bar in exchange for her dignity. Komatsu's wishes are as empty as his hands as he plays bartender in a run down club. He, alongside other people who are part of Keiko's life will slowly switch roles from friends, patrons and protector, Komatsu, into those who will contribute to the torture in Keiko's life. Just as rice was the center of Seven Samurai, money is the heart of this film. Ultimately, the heroine can rise above everything, everyone and ascend the stairs to Bar Carton again.

The stairs in question are those of a bar in the red-light district of Tokyo and the woman who ascends them is Mama-San, the bar's chief hostess, but the stairs may just as well be those of a brothel for the girls who work these bars are basically prostitutes, (even in Japan in 1960 you could never be that explicit). Of all Japanese directors Mikio Naruse was the one most concerned with the plight of women in contemporary society and he brought to his tales of women fallen on hard times an almost Sirkian sensibility though even Sirk's melodramas stayed clear of the brothel. This may also be the most 'westernized' of all Naruse's films. We could be in the New Orleans of "Walk on the wild side" and even the credits of this film have a touch of the Saul Bass about them. (If only Dmytryk's film could have been this good). There is a naturalism to Naruse's film that American melodramas lack and it's this naturalism that lifts it out of being mere melodrama and into the realms of tragedy. Fundamentally, Mama-San is a woman who hates the life she has chosen but feels powerless to move on and Hideko Takamine, (from "Floating Clouds"), is superb in the role. Yet here is an actress and a director whose work never really traveled beyond Japan and even today Naruse trails in popular opinion well behind the likes of Ozu and Mizoguchi. Hopefully the release of this film in a DVD box set together with "Floating Clouds" and "Late Chrysanthemums" will rectify

Hideko Takamine is a hostess at a Ginza bar. It's her job to greet the customers, keep them drinking, flirt with them, and later, collect the tab. She has enormous expenses because she must dress and live with an air of sophistication. Many of the girls supplement their earnings by sleeping with the customers. Best of all is to have a wealthy 'patron'.

Everyone likes and respects Miss Takamine. They call her 'mama' and make no overt attempt to seduce her, though it is clear all the men want to. She will have none of it. She was married briefly to a man who died. The rumor is that she put a love letter in his funeral urn, writing she would never love another.

Miss Takamine is unhappy. Her expenses are enormous. She feels her youth fading. She sends much of her earnings to her mother, who complains about her work. Her deadbeat brother faces prison and has a polio-crippled son. She would like to open her own bar, but feels nothing about her clients. Opportunities and sorrows, glimpses of happiness and illness open and close upon her.

It's another fine examples of Mikio Naruse's movies about being a single woman in a society devised for men's happiness. If the visuals are those of many a movie of its moment, it is a revolutionary, feminist movie in traditional garb, powered by the finest performance I have seen Miss Takamine give. She struggles but cannot change her situation. In this stasis, she changes.

I find one flaw in this otherwise impeccable Naruse masterpiece: a certain lack of rhythm. Perhaps what seems to me to be slightly clumsy editing by Eiji Ooi, Naruse's editor for his final two dozen movies, may be intended to show the disruption in Miss Takamine's life, her inner turmoil.