Le fleuve noir

"Kuroi kawa" ("Black River") is a most unusual Japanese film. While most films from this era tell stories about love or samurai warriors from the past, this one is planted firmly in post-war Japan...and among the lowest classes of society. Instead of showing nice folks, most people in the film are of the dregs...prostitutes, pimps, voyeurs, thugs and the like. And, for the most part, these people are incredibly ugly...not just spiritually but physically as well. It seems that director Masaki Kobayashi wanted to expose this ugliness...and the film is indeed an indictment of this. And, I am pretty sure Japanese audiences must have been shocked to see this!

The story is set in an incredibly seedy rooming house near a US military base. Most of the residents seem like degenerates and yet, oddly, a seemingly nice engineering student decides to live among them in order, he claims, to save money. It's hard to believe anyone living there who has any other options. He is interested in a lady who works as a waitress but before they can develop a relationship, she is kidnapped and raped by a creep they nickname 'Joe the Killer'! Now, she's stuck in a relationship with Joe...as he refuses to let her go, as she is now his 'property'. And, so she is hoping, somehow, the student will be able to rescue her from her plight with this violent brute.

If you are looking for a nice film or one that leaves you happy, then by all means do NOT watch this movie. Now it's not a bad film....but it is a bit depressing and sad to watch. After all, it's about the writer's perceptions about he breakdown of the social fabric in Japan. Interesting, very well crafted...and, at times, hard to watch.

I hated the first half of this film so much that I thought it would almost certainly get a scathing review and one of the lowest possible review scores from me. It's unpleasant to say the least, and problematic in several ways, the biggest of which is its treatment of women. You see, amidst the squalor of a slum near a U. S. Army base, a young woman is raped by a sleazeball posing as her rescuer, and she wants to marry him instead of going to the police. Obviously a big part of that relates to the culture and time period, and the (disgusting) reality that as a "ruined" woman she may not be able to get another man to marry her. However, it builds on this. In a second encounter, he slaps her around, and she embraces him tenderly anyway. We soon see her placated, demurely eating a watermelon, and aside from fear over the man's cruelty to another woman, we don't really see signs of her trauma. When she says "I saw it as fate and resigned myself to forgiving Joe. It seemed like one way to find a mate," it's beyond nauseating.

Meanwhile, Kobayashi gives us the various doings of Les Misérables in the slum, the subplots of which are unpleasant to watch and don't develop into anything much. In one scene, they argue with a woman about their excrement being used to help fertilize a garden. In another, they refuse to give blood to help a man who desperately needs a transfusion. In yet another, a woman tries to seduce the virtuous young man, but her husband catches her and physically assaults her. Later, when she turns to prostitution, he threatens to tie her up and beat her. All is selfishness, and there is no honor to be found anywhere.

The undercurrent to all of this moral decay is that it's due to the American occupiers, something signaled without nuance or reference to the Japanese militarism that brought on the war. We see the base and English signs for bars and brothels prominently in the background. When the lone virtuous man in the film asserts in indignation that "Japan is an independent nation," he's hit with the reality that the denizens of the slum have to pay for the utilities of the American base. We also see what is almost certainly the racist use of African American servicemen to heighten the sense of depravity.

Despite these issues, the film turned itself around in its second half. While the film is never full free of misogyny, the woman's motivations become a little clearer, and when the story begins focusing on the love triangle coming to a head, it's at its strongest. One guy (Fumio Watanabe) is a student, the other (wonderfully sinister Tatsuya Nakadai) is a violent game leader, and in their struggle for the woman (Ineko Arima), there is a fight for the soul of Japan, an old trope. The woman taking control of her own destiny and how the conflict was resolved was satisfying and cathartic.

The story about the slum being sold so that it can be demolished and turned into a "love hotel" doesn't end quite as strongly or as happily, but perhaps in that it balanced out the main story line. The residents must all agree to leave before it can be sold, and we see some of them bribed, and others who have their signature stamps forged. A "communist" tries to get them to stand together but fails, lamenting "Workers minds never seem to advance. This is hopeless. The military and the authorities always exert control over the workers." There is a sense of capitalist greed and corruption triumphing because the common man is uneducated and disorganized, a dark truism.

It's a tough one to rate because of how unpleasant the first half was, but in the end, I found that I was glad I had seen it for the little window it provided. The cinematography and cool jazz soundtrack helped as well. Not one I'd recommend necessarily though.

Although Masaki Kobayashi belongs to the generation after Yasujiro Ozu, he is in particular known for his triloogy about Japan during the Second World War ("The human condition" 1959 - 1961), while Ozu portrays the Japanese middle class during the years after Worldwar II. In this somewhat lesser known film Kobayashi focusses also on the postwar years. His subject is however not the middle class but people on the fringes of society. In this respect the film is more like a Mizoguchi film than like an Ozu film.

The story seems to be about a girl who has to choose between a poor student (the good guy) and a petty criminal who can afford to offer her more luxury (the bad guy). In reality the story is however much broader than this. We meet the inhabitants of an appartment complex nearby an American army compound (one of which is the aforementioned poor student). The landlord tries to throw them out of their houses so she can start a brothel. Althoug the story of the student and the the girl is predominant, we also learn something about the other inhabitants. The film takes on some elements of the ensemble film and can be compared with "Street of shame" (1956, Kenji Mizoguchi).

The image that Kobayashi presents of the Japanese society is not a favourable one. The American occupiers do not have a positive influence. On numerous occasions a jet fighter is flying over causing an immense roar, just to make clear how annoying the presence of American soldiers realy is. The question is how fair this kind of framing is. To be sure the American soldiers without any doubt are responsible for the demand for prostitutes. The supply of these prostitutes and the real estate corruption that surrounds the establishment of the brothel are however of a Japanese making.

From that beautiful classic rumble like music they blare frequently, to the cast sporting unique bright clothing in high contrast to the dark or black backgrounds that often inhabit the screen, the look and feel of this film is true noir, fantastic cinematography, and a dark themed plot.

Complete with romance, gang violence, a slumbers handing out evictions, and a love triangle. . Id call the plot original. And enthralling, in plain terms.

I put this up against classics like M, Chinatown, the Crimson Kimono.

The story is set around an American Air Force base which has attracted bars and brothels and the native Japanese who need this sordid world to scape by and make money to just barely survive. A love triangle develops among the dwellers of a falling down apartment building and a local gangster called Killer Joe.

It's a fascinating slice of life with engaging vivid seedy characters, these type of shanty towns always develop around military bases, I can't think of any other films I've seen that take place there. It's a rare look into the postwar lower middle class and lower end criminal element in Japan. Fast moving and convincing well worth watching if you can find it. Memorable ending and last image to a memorable film.