Le fleuve noir

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.

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.

Japanese drama from Shochiku and director Masaki Kobayashi. The story follows civil engineering student Nishida (Fumio Watanabe) as he moves into a slum apartment building near a U. S. army base. His fellow tenants struggle to survive by doing all sorts of unsavory things, while Nishida simply tries to keep his head down, concentrating on his studies, and staying out of trouble. Things get complicated when he falls for nice-girl waitress Shizuko (Ineko Arima), who has also caught the eye of young gang leader Killer Joe (Tatsuya Nakadai).

Director Kobayashi's film is meant as an indictment on post-war Japanese decadence and corruption, with a very critical eye toward the continuing U. S. military presence. Various concessions made for the comfort and convenience of the troops lead to poverty and squalor for the neighboring Japanese citizens, many of whom turn to petty crime and prostitution for survival. I think the director's message gets lost a bit in the love triangle, though. Watanabe makes for a passable lead, while Arima turns in another good turn, although not as impressive as that in Tokyo Twilight, which I watched yesterday. The real star is Nakadai, one of my favorite Japanese actors, here in his breakthrough role. He's menacing and compelling, while also imbuing what could have been a one-note psycho-thug with some depth and nuance. The film features excellent, moody cinematography, and the oppressive heat of the summer season is depicted very well.

This is The Lower Depths but angry. This feels like the closest Kobayashi ever came to making a Kurosawa movie, and it's still distinctly his own. It's a look at people living in the shadow of an American military base on the eve of the American military's departure from the area, when development opportunities are opening up, and what happens to the people in the lowest rungs of society in the face of that. It's also a love-triangle. There's definitely interlapping elements between the two major storylines, both literally and thematically, but I still feel like the two could have been intertwined more intimately.

A slum area of Tokyo welcomes a new resident, the student Nishida (Fumio Watanabe). He has decided to move out here to save some money, finding a cheap place to rent run by an unscrupulous landlady (Isuzu Yamada). On his way, he meets with the pretty Shizuko (Ineko Arima), a waitress who lives in the area. She is also spied by Joe (Tatsuya Nakadai), a local gang leader who decides that he's going to have her. Nishida meets the tenants of the shack of an apartment building, including a husband whose wife he has no idea is a prostitute, a sickly man with a wife, and even some of Joe's gang. That night, Joe sends his gang out to accost Shizuko while she's alone, allowing him to put on a show of saving her from the group of six men. He then immediately rapes her. She is a good girl, though, and knows that he took possession of her. She comes to him the next day and demands that he marry her formally, a prospect that Joe laughs off while taking her on as a kept woman. This causes a rift between Shizuko and Nishida in more ways that one. They were obviously fond of each other in that stranger likes another sort of way, and she had promised to borrow a book from him. With her shame, she runs away from him instead.

Behind all of this is the landlady working with a government official to get the tenants to sign eviction notices because she wants to sell the land to the government for development. Tenant rights in Japan at the time apparently included a provision that each tenant in a tenement had to affirmatively sign off on the eviction for the sale to go through, so the landlady enlists the services of Joe and his men to get those signatures. They're happy to pay three thousand yen for a signature, but they'll commit fraud if necessary. And commit fraud they do, getting at least three fake signatures (as well as stamps, which were apparently a thing) including that of Nishida.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Shizuko and Joe continues with Shizuko obviously trapped in a situation she has no love for, living in rather constant fear, while also trying to find ways to break off just to see Nishida for a few moments whenever she can, but it never works out. He grows increasingly disgusted with the whole situation, and she grows increasingly desperate that she's losing her way out of her depression.

The final major section of the film is really centered on the love triangle while pretty much completely dropping the tenant storyline. There is something going on here that connects the two, though. It's all about how to survive in such a world. Do you keep your innocence, whatever it may be after a crime committed against you, or do you become like Joe? Well, Shizuko chooses one path, and Nishida does not want her to take it. He puts himself in danger to prevent her from doing it, but she does it on the eponymous black river (a stretch of street that is pitch black in the middle of the night). The final shot is just great, by the way. A marvelous composition of stark contrasts in both light and subject.

I think Black River is a good film overall, but the out of balance nature of the two subplots undermines the emotional throughline of Nishida, I think. The center of this film is the degrading effects of this lawless, dog eat dog environment on the people, starting with the presence of Joe and continuing into the degradation of Shizuko. The look at the tenants is another dimension of this same idea, meaning that the two subplots do tie together, but it ends up feeling like extra stuff rather than essential elements to the story. So, it's not quite two movies awkwardly stitched together, but it's close to it. It feels like Kobayashi's typical issue (I wouldn't go so far as to call it a problem) where he has what he wants to say (this time about the lawlessness of post-war Japan that tramples under the underclasses) while trying to find a story to attach to it. The story itself, the romantic trio, actually has all of the subtext that he was looking for, which is interesting in and of itself. Perhaps simply diminishing the tenants in importance while giving us more time with Nishida would have been enough to push this into the upper tier of Kobayashi's body of work.

As it is, though, Black River is the continued evolution of Kobayashi learning to say what he wants to say within a story effectively. He's never been bad at it, and he's made better films, however the strength of the love triangle element's subtext is probably the best he's done at it. The overall package is solidly good, but that love triangle represents some very good work on Kobayashi's part.

"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.