As Irmãs Makioka

One should first read The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki to better understand this film. It is a very great novel about the life of four middle-class sisters in Osaka, Japan in the 1930's. The book describes in great detail the many subtleties of life in Japan which a Westerner can miss understanding in the film. The film rather closely follows the book and is very beautifully photographed.

"Each sister is engaged in their own affairs, but Ichikawa's film (its Japanese title can be literally translated as "light snow") allots the lion's share to Sachiko and Yukiko, and the matchmaking arrangement preceded by precise calculation of all the conceivable conditions ("background" should be investigated through and through, no mentally disturbed mother-in-law lurking in the dark), the sheer canniness and the business-like action is astounding (death certificates of diseased wife and children are tossed over the dinner table), and Yukiko, played by beloved Japanese actress Yoshinaga with a comely reticence, extraordinarily wears down the mounting pressure and grinding process, to claim her hard-won victory, a good match is worth the wait, especially when eligible ones are few and far between during the wartime; whereas Sakuma, so adroitly embodies Sachiko's diligence and tenuous discomposure under a painstakingly maintained graciousness that comes naturally with age and savoir faire."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

Kon Ichikawa probably is the director who most rightfully can be considered to be the successor of Yasujiro Ozu. At the beginning of his career he made a couple of war films, but later his subject was more and more the daily life of middle class families.

"The Makioka sisters" is a film from the second half of his career and is about the relationships between four sisters of a family in the Kimono business. All the sisters are different. The two oldest are married, number 3 and 4 are still single. The oldest one runs the external (business) relations, the second one runs the internal (family) relations. Number 3 is looking for a husband the traditional way and is choosy in this regard. Number 4, who can (according to tradition) only marry when number 3 is finally married, is more easy going. She finds the character of her potential boy friends more important than his social standing.

"The Makioka sisters" was a film in honor of the 50th anniversary of the production company, so the film had to be a little festive. Situating the film in a family in the kimono business enabled Ichikawa to use bright colors, and in this respect the film reminded me of "Ju Dou" (1990, Zhang Yimou).

Due to the possibility of using bright colors in a film and not in a book, one is inclined to say that in this case the film must be better than the book. Some years ago I read (another) book from the writer Jun'ichiro Tanizaki and now I am not so sure anymore. Tanizaki turned out to be a very subtle writer. Maybe I need to read "The Makioka sisters" some day to come to a final judgement.

The Makioka Sisters shows Ichikawa going back to one of the greatest 20th Century Japanese writers, Junichiro Tanizaki. Ichikawa had already directed, in the 1950s, a stunning adaptation of the Tanizaki novel The Key. The Key is an elliptical comedy about erotic fixation, with a lush visual style of saturated colors. The Makioka Sisters is a more subtle and delicate film, attuned as the novel was to the undercurrents running through the highly structured lives of the main characters. In some ways, the novel was Tanizaki's attempt to write a modern version of Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, and Ichikawa seems to have understood this in his adaptation, which brings a great deal of low-key humor and psychological insight to the proceedings, all very much in the Genji style. Essential viewing.

In 1983, director Kon Ichikawa made this film adaptation of the epic 1948 postwar novel "Sasameyuki" ("light snow"). Like Hollywood's "Gone with the Wind", it depicts the decline of the aristocracy through a deceptive romance angle. There's an even greater deception in this film which I'll get to in the 4th paragraph, but let's start with the plot first.

This is the story of an aristocratic Osaka family over a period of 4 years beginning in autumn 1936 and ending in spring 1941, just as Japan entered World War II. So already we see a direct parallel to Gone with the Wind which depicted 4 years 1861 to1865 leading up to the American Civil War. As such, this is the story of a traditional "polite society" that is slowly and unavoidably heading into an era-changing storm. The plot focuses on 4 sisters of a proud family who, following the deaths of their parents, cling to ideals of propriety and nobility even as events around them--and they themselves--begin to deflate this bubble. In particular, the story revolves around the elder 2 sisters' unsuccessful attempts to arrange a suitable marriage for the 3rd sister, while from behind the 4th sister (the rebellious one) chips away at the pomp by getting herself involved in multiple scandals and general bad behavior.

"The Makioka Sisters" is a quiet, slow moving & poetic film, so don't expect the riveting drama of Gone with the Wind, and definitely don't expect the explosive performance of Vivien Leigh, Hollywood's greatest Scorpio haha. But if you have the patience to read into this film, here beneath the veneer of polite Japanese gentry is brewing a serious Tara-burning fire. And that leads me to the great deception I mentioned earlier.

The deception happens on two levels. First there is the artistic level, where director Kon Ichikawa chooses to avoid overt shocks in lieu of subtle, unspoken storytelling: the lingering stares that the elder sister's husband casts on his young sister-in-law, or the way the sister-in-law "accidentally" shows her kneecaps to the staring husband; the way the 2 elder sisters "argue" not with shouts but by staring at each other like cats; or the youngest, rebellious sister's chain smoking habit when she's not in the house. No, we don't get any rousing, fiery "AS GOD AS MY WITNESS...!" turnip-eating scenes, but instead we get just as much electricity in what is NOT shown.

And this leads me to the 2nd level of deception. This is regarding the culture of 1983 Japan when this film was released. As Japanese film historian Audie Bock says in her essay on this film, "Japanese audiences of the 1980s, flush with the wealth that came with being banker to the world and possessing an even higher standard of living than the United States, could no longer bear to look back on wartime poverty. While the book chronicles the decline of the Makioka family ... Ichikawa presents only luxury."

And right there, you have the reason why "The Makioka Sisters" is an amazing experience. Just as the fictional Makioka sisters deceive themselves into upholding their illusion of wealth, so the actual audience (of 1980s Japan) was deceptively kept in this same illusion. Just as the Makioka sisters don't want to confront poverty, scandal and essentially *truth*, so this film also acts like a silent 5th character telling us that the aristocracy is alive and well.

Did Kon Ichikawa truly believe this, or is the entire film a very clever tongue-in-cheek jab that's putting one over on the nouveau-riche? I suspect it's the latter. So in that respect, perhaps this film isn't like Gone with the Wind so much as it's like the 1971 classic "Fiddler on the Roof" - tradition vs. change (and you know who always wins). But this last bit is just my opinion. Check out the film and decide for yourself how to interpret this magnificent work.