Cast:
Yumeji Tsukioka (Fumiko Shimojō, née Nakajō), Ryōji Hayama (Akira Ōtsuki), Junkichi Orimoto (Shigeru Anzai), Hiroko Kawasaki (Tatsuko), Shirō Ōsaka (Yoshio), Ikuko Kimuro (Seiko), Masayuki Mori (Takashi Hori), Yōko Sugi (Kinuko, Hori's wife), Chōko Iida (Hide), Bokuzen Hidari (Hide's husband), and Tōru Abe (Yamagami) Directed by Kinuyo Tanaka.
Review:
The story of female film directors also has a chapter dedicated to the first two women directors in the country of Japan. Tazuko Sakane was the first female director in the country, debuting in 1936 after having spent a couple of years as an assistant director and editor for Kenji Mizoguchi; the film was released as Hatsu Sugata [New Clothing]. However, it was the only feature film she would end up doing, because its failure precluded her from doing further features. Her only opportunity to direct came with the Manchukuo Film Association with educational nonfiction films that were aimed for Japanese immigrants. Of those films, only one survives (Sakane died in 1975 at the age of 70). Coincidentally, the second female film director in Japan would have an association with Mizoguchi. Kinuyo Tanaka had been an actress since she was fifteen years old (and graduated to lead roles in 1929), and she would be directed by various names in Japanese cinema such as Heinosuke Gosho, Yasujirō Ozu, and (eventually) Mizoguchi. After World War II ended, she took a different approach to acting, such as going on a cultural envoy to the United States (which attracted criticism of "Americanization", which perplexes me) and going for freelance work in acting. She even wanted to become a director, for which she aspired to join the Directors Guild of Japan, which had Mizoguchi as president. However, he strongly recommended against hiring her as a director because of his belief that she was not fit to direct (on that note, screw him); she was the only women in the Guild to her death. However, she would persist in her ambition, and she would get her chance with Love Letter [Koibumi] (1953). In time, Tanaka would direct five further films between 1953 and 1962, with The Eternal Breasts [Chibusa yo eien nare] being her most acknowledged work. As for her acting career, she would act in over a hundred films before her last in 1976, and she died in 1977 at the age of 67.
The late 1950s were a Golden Age for Japanese cinema, and it shouldn't surprise you to see this as one of the interesting works within the era. Produced by Nikkatsu, the film was loosely based on the life Fumiko Nakajō, a poet who went through two mastectomies before her death of breast cancer in 1954 at the age of 31. The film was written by Sumie Tanaka. With a run-time of 110 minutes, it is pretty easy to recommend this film, one that shows plenty of efficiency within its storytelling and frank honesty in a bittersweet drama that shows just what can happen to a woman who finds a new streak of independence within tragedy. It is the story of a woman who goes through divorce (and the loss of a child to said divorced parent), the growing of a poetry career, and then breast cancer (which is the most-common invasive cancer in women for the world). It depicts the struggle of a newly divorced women with cancer by not turning it into something for exploitation or easy solutions (in that sense, it seems quite progressive even now). Tsukioka is the key to the proceedings, since this journey is one that requires an earthy sense of timing and capable charm. She does that in spades, never straining under the pressure on route to a tremendous performance that likely will stick with you for a time. Hayama plays the friendly second in a timely affair that happens around the climax, which results in a patiently assembled tender romance for worthy effect (on the other side is Mori, who Tsukioka has a carefully planned distance with). Likely the most arresting sequence is the one involving a long hallway with pushing from nurses...which goes behind an iron gate for the morgue. It is a bleak, honest movie that hits the mark in its filmmaking, one that I highly recommend watching as a film that shows plenty of expression without trouble. Death may be inevitable, but it does not mean the legacy of a director like Tanaka will be forgotten, particularly with a film as haunting and as effective as this movie proves to be.
Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.
Next Time: The Connection (1961).
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