Review - A Mother Should Be Loved

April 11, 2019

A Mother Should Be Loved – Japan, 1934

I am feeling a bit torn at the moment. While I know what I want to say about Yasujiro Ozu’s 1934 drama A Woman Should Be Loved, I am not as certain just how much I should express. This is, of course, a question that many reviewers grapple with, especially in this age of spoiler alerts and frustration when pivotal plot details are revealed, even from movies for which expectations of secrecy seem rather unreasonable. After all, if you haven’t seen a movie within a few years of its theatrical release, I think you lose the right to demand complete discretion on the part of people writing or talking about it.

However, what do you do with a film like A Mother Should Be Loved? This is a film that has yet to appear on DVD or Blu-ray in the United States. To view it, one must order it from a UK-based website, as well as have a region-free DVD player. And then there’s the Criterion factor. Since the company has put out so many of Ozu’s other films, potential viewers may be waiting for their eventual release of this one, thus making the BFI release something they feel quite safe passing on.

So, here are a few things that people with this mindset should be aware of. First, the bad news. A Mother Should Be Loved is an incomplete film – the first and last reels have been lost, meaning that the film no longer contains a significant part of its set-up and its entire finale – and rarely do films in this state get a formal stand-alone release. On the other hand, what remains of the film has been remarkably well preserved, so much so that it is hard to imagine what even a company like Criterion could add to it, barring the miraculous discovery of the entire film in an abandoned attic somewhere in Japan.

Yet there is another consideration. A Mother Should Be Loved is one of Ozu’s most Japanese films. In describing it this way, I do not mean to imply anything negative about its quality or the performances of its cast. It has all to do with its central conflict, and here is where the spoiler alert conundrum comes in – As Shakespeare might have put it: To reveal or not to reveal? So, read the rest at your own discretion.

A Mother Should Be Loved is about a family that loses its patriarch, a topic Ozu addressed in greater detail in his 1941 film, Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family. Here, the family consists of just four people, and sadly the father dies never having fulfilled a simple promise, that of taking his sons to the beach. I suspect that an American film with this set-up with end with the mother and the two sons looking out at the glorious waters of the blue sea, an act that would symbolize coming full circle. Ozu was never one for such sentiment. The father’s death is never even explained, although from everything we learn throughout the film, it was likely the result of either overwork or cancer, a possibility that casts a pall over later scenes of his sons, now older, honoring their father by taking up his habit of smoking a pipe. Nor is it ever explained how his widow, Chieko (Mitsuko Yoshikawa), makes enough money to send both of her sons to university.

The central conflict of the film arises when Sadao (played as an adult by Den Obinata and as a child by Seiichi Kato), the oldest of the two sons, applies for university and gets his first look at his birth certificate. Spoiler alert: He is not his mother’s son. In an early scene, Chieko is urged by a family friend (Ozu regular Chishu Ryu) to continue raising Sadao as if he were her son, and it is suggested that the deception is necessary for Chieko to be able to raise him as her own flesh and  blood  And here is where I think the film becomes somewhat inaccessible for Western audiences. Thousands of parents take on this sort of responsibility every year, and they do so without the need for subterfuge. In addition, just as many children learn every year that they have been adopted or that one of their parents had been previously married to someone else. Children eventually just accept these things and move on. Even in the more conservative days of the 1930s, it was hardly taboo for a widower to remarry and for his second wife to assume the maternal role for any children he’d had with his previous wife. So when Sadao starts acting cruel to his stepmother and then throws himself on the floor and sobs uncontrollably, non-Japanese audiences may be forgiven for giving a collective shrug and thinking, “What’s this all about?” and “What an ungrateful boy!”

Now, it’s telling that Chieko never expresses these sentiments. In fact, she does the opposite: she endorses them, implying that they are justified, even years later, yet the film never attempts to explain why. What exactly are the social implications of being raised by your father’s second wife? What bearing, if any, does that have on your friends and potential employers? And why doesn’t the truth make Sadao more grateful and sympathetic to the woman who raised him? I wanted to know. Perhaps the intended audience simply didn’t need to.

The film was made in 1934, a time when nationalistic fervor was rising and the Japanese government was on the verge of going to war in Asia. There is no reference to this, yet curiously the film includes one reference to Western influence. In the room of a local prostitute hangs a poster of Joan Crawford’s 1932 film Rain, in which Crawford portrays a prostitute named Sadie Thompson. Sadie is eventually able to escape her old life through marriage with a police sergeant. Perhaps Ozu is suggesting that the prostitute in Ozu’s film has visions of a similar happy ending with Sadao, an example, perhaps, of the West perpetuating unrealistic and culturally unacceptable notions to society at large.

Unfortunately (for Western audiences, at least), the film never moves on from the narrative thread of “stepmother problem,” and that is to the film’s detriment, for what doesn’t resonate early on still doesn’t resonates later. To me, this lessened the impact the film might otherwise have had. I didn’t empathize with the characters as much as I normally do when watching an Ozu film. In fact, I found myself wondering at the injustice of it all. Here was a movie in which a man could move on from grief and find happiness in a second marriage. However, his wife could do neither. She seemed to be required to be in a perpetual state of mourning, never able to move on, never able to find contentment outside of the success of her sons. Her late husband was ever-present, staring down from an altar affixed to the wall, as if he had been all she would ever need for the rest of her life. Again, I wondered why. I know there’s an explanation for it, some rationale that, at the very least, explains the thinking behind such portrayals of women as being capable of eternal loyalty, but it is a concept that Ozu himself moved away from, as evident from the ending of Tokyo Story.

With A Mother Should Be Loved, we get one of Ozu’s most unapproachable films. For some, this will be a challenge and a beautiful one at that. I felt it was an obstacle to any full enjoyment of the film. A Mother Should Be Loved is certainly watchable. It has good performances, and Ozu again puts his mastery of imagery and close-ups on display throughout. However, the film is more likely to be enjoyed as a curiosity, as a blip in the repertoire of a man known for producing far more masterpieces than works of mediocrity. A Woman Should Be Loved, it bring me no pleasure to say, is an example of the latter, much more akin to There Was a Father than Late Spring or Good Morning. It is one of only a small handful of Ozu’s films that I am content to watch only once, and that is a telling statement in and of itself. (on DVD in Region B)

2 and a half stars

*A Mother Should Be Loved is a silent film. 

Review - Ornamental Hairpin

August 18, 2017

Ornamental Hairpin – Japan, 1941

There is a noticeable difference between World War II-era love stories made in Japan and their counterparts in the United States. While American films such as Pearl Harbor and From Here to Eternity often present patriotism and love as going hand in hand, with patriotism receiving just a slightly greater prominence, many Japanese films present war as an obstacle even to the first date. It is almost as if thoughts of love are selfish when the country’s honor is at stake, and even when it is clear that two characters are in love, the fact that there is a war going on can prevent characters from even acknowledging their feelings aloud. Instead, they’re more prone to long loving looks that are often tinged with regret and stoic resolution. To me, such moments resonate more than those in which a couple says good-bye before shipping off to fight. They at least had joy; their Japanese counterparts often did not, and it is truly moving to see a character realize that what she wanted is something she will never have.

I reflected on these things after watching Hiroshi Shimizu’s 1941 wartime film Ornamental Hairpin. The war is only fleetingly referenced, yet every character seems acutely aware and affected by it. Young boys shout bonsai as they raise their arms, older people cling to tradition and established hierarchy in a way that people only do when they feel threatened or uneasy, and a steady stream of travelers leave the city in search of temporary respite from the chaos of the big cities and its constant war drums. And of course there’s the budding on a love that has no chance of a happy ending. War sees to that.

Ornamental Hairpin takes place at a popular mountain resort that, oddly enough, seems both popular and unprepared for the wave of visitors that descend on it. In its opening scene, we see a party of young geisha walking briskly along a dusty road reflecting upon just how wonderful it is to be away from the big city and the problems that come with it. One even remarks with wonder about how much she is sweating, for which her companion doesn’t share her enthusiasm.

We then meet a number of other residents. There’s the cranky professor (Tatsuo Saito), who has some pretty lofty notions of what his vacation is supposed to be like; his children, Taro and Jiro; two men sharing adjacent rooms, Nanmura and Hiroyasu; and Hiroyasu’s wife, who is unfortunately forced to endure the professor’s dismissive comments whenever her husband asks for her opinion. Shimuzu devotes much of the film’s first act to establishing these characters, and while nothing much happens narratively, we get a great sense of who they are and why they came together. I grew to care for them, even for the professor, whose mannerisms are likely the product of a lifetime spent adhering to tradition as if there were no other alternatives.

One day, as the men are enjoying time in the resort’s outdoor bath, Nanmura (played by a very young Chishu Ryu) steps on a hairpin inadvertently dropped by one of the young ladies staying there and is injured so severely that he requires crutches and physical therapy (playfully administered by Taro and Jiro, of course). He takes it all in stride and even speculates that the woman who lost it must be an extraordinary beauty. The professor chalks that up to the poet in him. As luck would have it, the woman, Emi Ota (Kinuyo Tanaka), contacts the hotel about her lost item and upon being told that it injured someone decides to return and apologize.

What follows is a beautiful and moving courtship that is something akin to a dance, with each person taking turns leading the other into the next phase of their relationship. At times, he leads, demonstrating to her his proud character and noble attributes; at other times, she carries him, sometimes literally, over the awkward hurdles that love can put in the way of two so smitten as they are. It is a beautiful thing to behold. We hear little of the war or of Nanmura’s role in it; we learn more about Emi’s backstory and realize just how much she has invested in Nanmura.

As I watched this unfold, I was reminded of the ways in which we measure time and of how we know that it has passed, by life’s small, but noticeable milestones – the end of the baseball season, the first day of a new school year, the first sight of Christmas lights – milestones that themselves begin things that are also transitory. All things indeed eventually end. Here, though, fate is especially cruel. There is no promise that someone will wait, no sudden elopement, no night of passionate embraces and tears. War, as it does so many things, prevents it. And by showing it, Shimizu may have made one of the subtlest and most heartbreaking anti-war statements of all time. (on DVD as part of Eclipse’s Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu)

3 and a half stars

*Ornamental Hairpin is in Japanese with English subtitles.

Review - Our Lovable Tramp

October 23, 2014

Our Lovable Tramp – Japan, 1969

To get a sense of the sort of person Torajiro Kuruma is, imagine an amalgamation of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp and Shintaro Katsu’s wandering samurai, Zatoichi. Like these two iconic characters, Torajiro is a poor drifter with little chance of ever finding financial success, and like Zatoichi he is apt to reminisce about the beauty of nature and places from his childhood. He may even break into song and dance when his youthful energy can no longer be contained. Also, like these two characters, he is called upon to assist someone in need. However, in this aspect, his circumstances diverge from the more noble exploits of the Tramp and Zatoichi, for Torajiro is prone to be the cause of the very problems he must somehow solve.

Torajiro Kuruma is the main character in Our Lovable Tramp, a film that begins very much like a Zatoichi film. In the film’s opening moments, we hear Torajiro reflect philosophically on the power that the scent of flowers and the passage of the seasons have on his thoughts and yearnings. It is as if they were fairies from one of Shakespeare’s plays, luring him home with their magic and music. And so Torajiro returns home – to his aunt and uncle, to his younger brother, and to his younger sister. In a scene practically yanked out of a Yasujiro Ozu film, we see Torajiro sitting in front of his aunt and uncle, as if he were the rightful head of the family. He passes out gifts as a man of great wealth and influence would, and when his younger sister returns from a hard day at work, the two of them have one of those touching reunions that seems destined to elicit tears. Then Torajiro utters those memorable words: “I’m going to take a piss.”

From there, the film is a series of madcap misadventures in which Torajiro first messes things up and then must make things right again. Most of these are humorous in rather painful ways, for while Torajiro’s mayhem is never intentional, it is rather agonizing to watch, especially when it negatively affects characters as nice as some of the one’s in this film. In one of the film’s most cringe-worthy moments, Torajiro relates the story of his conception. The story involves a womanizing father, a geisha, and a great deal of alcohol, and it is rather eye-opening, offering a glimpse into what make Torajiro tick. However, as the explanation progresses, we see the shocked expressions on the faces of the well-dressed people at the table, one of whom is his sister’s potential suitor.

This is not an uncommon storyline, for characters have been ruining other people’s weddings since the beginning of comedy. In fact, we have grown accustomed to seeing such films end with a character making up for his or her mistakes by putting the wedding back on track and being forgiven for whatever foolishness brought about the disharmony in the first place. What separates Our Lovable Tramp from such films is the way the film is not content simply to resolve the conflict and then cut to the end credits. Instead, it uses the storyline involving Torajiro’s sister to show something truly heartbreaking about love and marriage – mainly, that sometimes compatibility and common ground are not enough.

Our Lovable Tramp is both heartfelt and humorous. However, I suspect that how much you laugh during the film will depend on how well you understand Japanese. This is because much of what makes Torajiro such a humorous character is the way he continually mangles the Japanese language, often using terms that are far too colloquial for the circumstances, as well as some that are more common among triad members. I know this only because the good people at AnimEigo had the foresight to provide it. However, the way they did so is slightly problematic. The information appears suddenly at the top of the screen during moments in which Tora-San appears to be trying hard to impress his audience, yet failing miserably. The explanations indeed help clarify the reasons for his failures, but I suspect that many viewers will find it difficult to read text at the top of the screen while simultaneously reading subtitles at the bottom.   

The film has a stellar cast. Kiyoshi Atsumi, with his straw hat, worn-out suitcase, and inadequate comprehension of the obvious, is a delight to behold, as is Chieko Baisho as his likeable, sweet younger sister. Ozu regular Chishu Ryu makes a nice appearance as Gozen-sama, a friend of the family, and Sachiko Mitsumoto is quite impressive as Gozen’s daughter, Fuyuko, one of the only characters who accepts Torajiro as he is. The film was directed by Yoji Yamada, who at 83 is still making quality films, one of which, The Twilight Samurai, already appears on my list of films that deserve to be seen. Our Lovable Tramp will soon join it there.

Our Lovable Tramp is a funny and poignant film. It could easily have been another one of those silly slapstick comedies about an abrasive character that causes mischief wherever he goes, yet it is more than that. It is about an indelible character that almost everyone can relate to, and this character is not sensationalized in the way that some other comedic oddballs have been. Instead, Torajiro is an underdog who refuses to see himself as such. He is a man secure in his way of life and completely unaware of his many shortfalls. He can be rude and confrontational one minute and sweet and obliging the next. And throughout it all, there is his broad smile, which conveys his incredible youthful innocence, his adolescent energy, and his adult stubbornness. It is a perfect combination. In short, Torojiro is the kind of character that audiences often want to see again, and in this case, we have been  rewarded – forty-seven more times, in fact. (on DVD)   

3 and a half stars

*Our Lovable Tramp is in Japanese with English subtitles.

*The Tora-San films have the distinction of being the longest-running series with the same actor in the title role.