Review - The Yellow Handkerchief (1977)

 

October 10, 2020

The Yellow Handkerchief – Japan, 1977

Characters like Yusaku Shima are some of the hardest to get right. No doubt, you know his type the moment he enters the frame – he’s often alone – even when in the company of others, his face is either emotionless or far too pained for any human being, and when he does speak, it is what he doesn’t say that speaks volumes. Sometimes he is a villain – and a cold-blooded one at that, pursuing his victims often without ever explaining why he chose to torment our hero. When he is a more sympathetic character, his silence is often intentional, a cloak he wears to prevent the world from seeing – and subsequently rejecting - who he really is. And more often than not, this caution is warranted.

The challenge for writers of such characters comes when circumstances call for the silence to be broken. This is a challenge easily ignored when the laconic one is on the wrong side of the law – after all, he can just be a homicidal lunatic who simply gets his kicks off preying on the innocent. It is the noble ones who pose the most trouble. Say too little, and he remains an enigma; say too much and the revelation may not seem worthy of the prior investment.

Yoji Yamada’s The Yellow Handkerchief is the story of three travelers, each one making up their journey as they go along. The first one we meet is Kinya Hanada (Tetsuyo Takeda), an immature young man on a quest to prove his luck with women is not as horrible as it has always seemed. In the beginning of the film, we learn he has recently been rejected, an outcome that leads him to quit his job and spend all of his savings on a car, which he drives to Hokkaido. There, he meets Akemi Ogawa (well-played by Kaori Ogawa), a young woman who just learned that her boyfriend is cheating on her, and offers to drive her wherever she’s going. He’s just happy to be in the presence of a lady. At a rest stop, Kinya asks Yusaku (Ken Takakura) to take their picture, and eventually he is offered a ride, which he accepts despite not having a clear destination himself.

The set-up – three lost souls driving aimlessly around a volcanic island (how’s that for symbolism) - is promising, and the film does a decent job of building viewer’s interest in each character. Though Kinya remains an annoyance throughout most of the film, he undergoes just enough growth to justify Akemi’s ever changing feelings towards him. A wiser film would have had her develop feelings for Yusaku, but it is clear from her initial interaction with him that her role is to chip away at the emotional wall he had erected to keep people at a distance.

The three of them stay at a hotel, Yusaku in his own room; Kinya and Akemi in another, but just to save money, Kinya explains. Soon, he awkwardly makes his move and is rebuffed; this leads to his being chastised by Yusaku for lacking romantic instincts and being a “third-rate ball player,” the kind whose lack of skills prevents him from ever getting on base. For his part, Yusaku is respectful of women, and in flashbacks, we see evidence of a tender relationship, as well as a possible incident with the police. At a checkpoint, he is forced to reveal a bit more, and it almost results in his arrest.

It is here that the filmmakers find themselves at that proverbial fork in the road. One path has Yusaku decide he’s said enough and renew his prior embrace of aloofness. On the other, one revelation begats another and then the floodgates open. Yamada and his co-writer, Asuna Yoshitaka, elect for the latter, and it is the wrong choice. More than halfway over, the film does not have enough time to do justice to the story that unravels or to the essential character it includes. As a result, what we see does not match what we are asked to believe, and the film’s attempt at a happy ending ultimately feels forced, an emotional cop-out rather than earned relief, and this cheapens the life-altering circumstances laid bare just a few scenes earlier. Yusaku is a man in need of true redemption, not the kind of overtly silly symbolism more reminiscent of a John Hughes or Cameron Crowe comedy than a profile of a psychologically-damaged individual. The result is a journey that ends up being much less worth taking than the first half suggests.

And yet, there’s Ken Takakura, an actor I could watch admiring drying paint and still be enthralled by. He is the perfect choice to play Yusaku, for he has the uncanny ability to express feelings while portraying them being suppressed. We can see in his weary eyes and troubled look a startling distrust in himself, a shame in some prior decision. When he speaks ill of Kinya, it is clear that he is also critiquing himself while simultaneously concealing the why and the how. In his career, Takakura played many such characters, and he did so them exceptionally well. He was a rare breed. He could take a substandard film like The Yellow Handkerchief and make you glad you devoted your time to it. You can’t say that about most actors. (on DVD in Region 3)

2 and a half stars

*The Yellow Handkerchief is in Japanese with English subtitles

*The film was the first recipient of the Best Picture award at the Japan Academy Prize, Japan’s equivalent of the Academy Awards.

*The film’s title was inspired by Tony Orlando’s song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.”

Review - Poppoya - Railroad Man

February 18, 2016

Poppoya – Railroad Man – Japan, 1999

The railroad is a contradictory image. On the one hand, it is a symbol of modernity, for it was the railroad that opened new avenues for both travelers and businesses, as well as one of the reasons that the North had an advantage during the American Civil War. On the other hand, many railroads exist today only reminders of a past greatness and relevance that time has slowly chipped away at, and stretches of ghost track mark where prosperous cities of immense historical importance once stood and where now few people reside. Yasuo Furuhata‘s 2015 film, Poppoyo – Railroad Man, is very much about this contradiction. It is set in a fictional small town in northern Japan whose best days are clearly behind it. Yet, what a town it used to be. In flashbacks, we see just how important coal towns were to past economies and just how much steam trains were relied on during Japan’s reconstruction after the Second World War. In present-day scenes, trains arrive along a once mighty train line without a single passenger on them. This is just one of the signs that the end is near.

The train station is run by Otomatsu Sato, played by veteran actor Ken Takamura. In early scenes, we see examples of Otomatsu’s professionalism and dedication, as he stands out in the snow watching trains arrive and depart. He notes the time of arrival, and as trains leave, he never fails to observe the rear lights and the signal, vocally checking them off a mental list of things that help ensure safe passage. It is in this fashion that he has spent the majority of his life, so it is tempting to see it as being representative of his generation. However, the film does not hold Otomatsu up as a beacon of light to be followed by younger generations, for as the film progresses, we see the consequences of his dedication to his job – important experiences missed out on, tragic moments that he was absent from, and loved ones that he should have spent more time with. He speaks of sorrow and pain as things that cannot be expressed outwardly, and his face is a constant reminder of all that he has lost. In other words, his professionalism has come at a steep cost.

Just what he has lost is revealed throughout the film, and I enjoyed these moments quite a lot. At times, they reminded me of my own youth, a time when I consistently found a reason to say yes to working on holidays – even on Christmas. Sadly, you don’t get those moments back, and as time has gone by, it has become increasingly difficult to justify my actions with a broad explanation of professionalism and dedication to one’s job. I suspect this is a little of what Otomatsu is going through throughout the film – looking back, reflecting on his actions, understanding them, yet also wondering if they were really worth it.

In flashbacks, we meet Otomatsu’s late wife (Shinobu Otake). She is a woman whose goal it was to be understanding of her husband’s dedication to his job, and for the most part she was proud of her husband. There’s also a young man named Toshi, who, had life not taken a dangerous turn, would have become Otomatsu’s adopted son and likely carried on in his career. We also get to know Otomatsu’s longtime friend Senji Sugiura (Nenji Kobayashi), who implores Otomatsu to take a job at a hotel he is going to run after he is retired. Senji also works for the railway, yet with his upper management position and his connections, he has been provided with a job after retirement; Otomatsu, lacking in position and notoriety, has not. It is doubtful he would have taken one anyway. The station where he works also functions as his home, and as such, it is his only link to those that he has lost. The parts of the film that involve these characters were quite moving, and I found myself hoping that someone would be able to pierce through Otomatsu’s hard shell and pull him out of his self-imposed emotional and physical isolation.

Poppoya – Railroad Man is consistently interesting and frequently involving. Throughout the film, Furuhata gets strong performances from his cast. And while the script occasionally gives them little more to say than I’m a railroader and has them say this far too much, at least it is always clear what saying this line entails. I also admired many of Furuhata’s filmmaking techniques, including his use of the four seasons to express the passage of time and the changes that take place in Otomatsu’s career. Also, throughout the film, Furuhata elects to shoot more recent scenes in color and flashbacks in mostly black and white. I say “mostly” because a few things in each flashback are colored red. The technique is similar to the one Steven Spielberg employed in Schindler’s List, and it draws the viewers’ attention to certain objects and invites us to speculate as to their significance.

However, while the technique makes it clear just when certain scenes take place in the film’s timeline, it ultimately loses its power, partly because what it indicates is so obvious early on and partly because I was hoping that I was wrong about what I suspected it indicated. I wasn’t, however, and I liked the film less because of this. After all, what’s the point of building up a film with so many realistic problems only to solve them by turning to the supernatural? It’s like saying that nothing matters – not pain, not guilt, not mental barriers built to insulate oneself from one’s own inner remorse. Apparently, what heals a lifetime of regret and guilt is a cathartic experience with a supernatural being. Sure, this is no ordinary supernatural being, and there is a degree of emotional pull to their final scene together. However, in the end, it just didn’t feel poetic or meaningful. After so much time being devoted to creating realistic characters with real problems, finding resolution in this way just felt like a cop out. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

3 stars

*Poppoya – Railroad Man is in Japanese with English subtitles. The version I have was released by a company named KAM. There were far too many errors in the subtitles.