Tag: Akiyoshi Kitaura

Bonds of Love (愛のきずな, Takashi Tsuboshima, 1969)

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On a rainy night, a salaryman trapped in a loveless marriage and unsatisfying career chances on a beautiful woman dressed in kimono waiting by the side of the road. He decides to double back and offer her a lift, which she ill-advisedly accepts, but as it turns out he is actually the one in danger. Adapted from the Seicho Matsumoto short story Tazutazushi, The Bonds of Love (愛のきずな, Ai no Kizuna) has underlying misogyny that paints the woman at its centre as a sort of elemental spirit who bewitches men and leads them to their doom even while the hero himself is selfish and insecure, mired in an inferiority complex and incapacitated by wounded male pride.

The fact that Ryohei (Makoto Fujita) is already married comes as a bit of a shock, abruptly revealed as it is by the nameplate on the suburban home he returns to after a date with Yukiko (singer Mari Sono) having told her that he lives alone at the company dorm. It seems obvious that he’s dissatisfied with his domestic life and fed up with his overly materialist wife Sanae (Chisako Hara) whose constant gripes only seem to needle at his sense of inadequacy. Today, she’s misplaced an expensive ring he’d used his annual bonus to buy her and when he notices it simply sitting next to the sink, she remarks that it’s not all that nice anyway. Ryohei at least feels that she resents him for not being more successful and having the financial power to buy her the frivolous gifts and status symbols she clearly desires. The power dynamic is in any case unbalanced because Sanae is the daughter of his boss which means she in effect has total control over his career. One word to her father, and he’s toast, but at the same time she can only help him so far with his advancement despite nagging him constantly about his future prospects. Meanwhile, the other men at the office make fun of him. They describe Ryohei as an idiot who’s only in his position by virtue of being the boss’ son-in-law. 

This of course further needles at his wounded male pride, but dating Yukiko, who adores him completely, on the side restores his sense of masculinity. After he claims to have been staying out late playing mahjong, Sanae cautions him that one of his colleagues is being transferred because of his gambling and womanising habits. At his leaving do, Miyata (Sachio Sakai) lays into Ryohei and says he’s the one who taught him how to pick up women and pretend to be single as if this is the way they overcome their sense of impotence while under the company’s thumb. Ryohei appears not to like him, perhaps because he reflects the qualities in himself he is least proud of. The news of his transfer therefore spooks Ryohei knowing that the same fate may befall him if his affair with Yukiko is exposed. 

But when Sanae does eventually suspect he’s cheating on her and complains to her mother, the boss rings Ryohei and basically tells him not to worry about it because a man’s not a man if he doesn’t play around. The conflict that Ryohei has is essentially one of conflicting masculinities, the one in which he is effectively emasculated but defines his status through a hierarchical relationship with other men within the corporate structure, and the other in which he defines it through romantic conquest which also represents a kind of freedom. But being a fairly conventional man, in the end Ryohei cannot bear to have his salaryman persona ripped away from him and will do whatever it takes to maintain his relationship with his wife and by proxy his boss to preserve his career.

Realising Yukiko poses a threat to that, he decides the only solution is to kill her but it’s also true that he’s confronted by a much more robust vision of masculinity in the form of her estranged husband Kenji (Makoto Sato) who went to prison after stabbing another man in a jealous rage. It’s clear that Ryohei is afraid of Kenji and definitely doesn’t want to end up getting stabbed. His “love” for Yukiko does not stand up to that kind of scrutiny and it’s her assertion that she’s going to tell Kenji all about their affair and ask for a divorce that shifts him into crisis mode. After all, he’s in flight from domesticity. Leaving Sanae, and with it destroying his career might not solve his problems even if what he eventually chooses is just that, to be free of the burden of the salaryman dream and move to a small town to open a shop with a woman who is in thrall to him and therefore continually submissive and loving in contrast to Sanae who only ever makes him feel small.

Yet, we can’t actually be sure how much of what happens later is actually real or just Ryohei imagining things because of his guilty conscience and continuing sense of inadequacy. Essentially, he gets a second chance to make better choices and finally gains the courage to abandon his salaryman persona only to be immediately confronted by both his transgressions and violent masculinity. Tsuboshima crafts an atmosphere of malevolence and noirish dread coupled with a spiritual sense of retribution born of the constant rains and gothic thunderstorm that heralds the final confrontation in which Yukiko is herself a harbinger of death leading weak willed men towards their doom to which they go all too willingly. 

The Twilight Years (恍惚の人, Shiro Toyoda, 1973)

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In the early 1970s Japanese society was not as concerned with population slowdown as it would come to be, but Shiro Toyoda’s sympathetic ageing drama The Twilight Years (恍惚の人, Kokotsu no Hito) is evidence of a growing consciousness that traditional ideas about how one cares for the elderly may now be becoming incompatible with the functioning of modern society. Based on a best-selling novel by Sawako Ariyoshi, the film has profound empathy both for the ageing patriarch once apparently a tyrant but now a meek and frightened child, and the daughter-in-law to whom his care largely falls.

In fact, it’s caring for Shigezo (Hisaya Morishige) that some believed shortened the lifespan of his late wife who passes away in the film’s opening scenes. Already somewhat detached from reality, Shigezo simply reports that his wife won’t wake up no matter how much he tries to wake her, much like a child who’s discovered someone no longer living. While his daughter-in-law Akiko (Hideko Takamine) rushes to her room with a sense of foreboding, Shigezo merely stays in the kitchen eating boiled potatoes straight out of the pan. It’s the odd behaviour that seems to irk his son Nobuyoshi (Takahiro Tamura) but it’s only now that the couple seem to be realising that there’s something wrong especially as Shigezo does not appear to understand that his wife has died. Pitiably, he chides her for lounging around so late in the day when she’s already been laid out for her funeral.

When his daughter, Kyoko (Nobuko Otowa), arrives having actually missed the funeral itself due to transport issues and a conflicting responsibility to act as a matchmaker at a wedding, Shigezo doesn’t recognise her. He continues to ask for Akiko and gradually forgets most of the other people in his life, screaming when encountering Nobuyoshi and instructing Akiko to call the police to report a burglar in their home. According to both women, Shigeyoshi had treated Akiko poorly ever since she joined their family, which makes caring for him so much harder. The reason he becomes so attached to Akiko is likely simply that she is the person who is always around him so he has less time to forget her. He may realise on some level that she may not wish to care for him given his previous behaviour which may be why he becomes preoccupied with the idea she may “disappear” and cries out in the night when he can no longer see her.

But Akiko also has other responsibilities including a job outside the home and a teenage son studying for his exams. Nobuyoshi expresses regret that he hasn’t been more help and voluntarily tries to pitch in, but lets himself off the hook given that his father doesn’t recognise him and becomes anxious in his presence. Satoshi (Izumi Ichikawa) meanwhile does try to do his bit but is young and a little resentful of the responsibility. As his dementia becomes more severe, Shigezo begins calling Satoshi “Dad” as if he were a child again. Which is all to say, Shigezo becomes Akiko’s responsibility and the strain of caring for him begins to affect her own mental and physical health leading her to fear that she too may die younger than she otherwise might have. 

Yet in exploring her options, Akiko finds little by way of support. Most nursing homes won’t accept patients with complex needs like Shigezo and conditions such dementia are often regarded as mental illnesses meaning her only option might be to put him in an asylum. Shigezo was attending an old person’s daycare centre, but later says he doesn’t want to go anymore because it’s full of old people and therefore no fun. While the film is sympathetic towards Akiko and the difficulties she is facing in caring for her father-in-law it also has profound empathy for Shigezo for though he has so many people who are doing their best to look after him, his increasing mental confusion quite obviously leaves him isolated and he must be incredibly lonely while trapped within his own reality. He develops a habit of saying “hello, hello,” as if he were answering the telephone which may be his attempt to communicate while he is also fascinated with a caged bird which may reflect his own sense of being constrained by his condition.

Later, the bird seems to symbolise Akiko too, trapped as she is within the domestic environment where all responsibility seemingly falls to her. Even so a young student couple she rents the annex to for a lower price in exchange for keeping an eye on Shigezo during the day remark that he may be in the ideal state for a human being having returned to early childhood in which there are no concerns or responsibilities and he is therefore unburdened by the weight of what is to live. Toyoda often uses handheld camera to symbolise the desperation and destabilisation of Shigezo’s existence in which Akiko has become his only fixed point. One of Nobuyoshi’s friends remarks that perhaps it was better when the average life expectancy was 50 and Nobuyoshi’s mother might have been lucky passing away peacefully while otherwise in good health. Still, as Nobuyoshi says, it comes for us all in the end and we should all try to be kinder to each other while we’re here.

Blue Christmas (ブルークリスマス , Kihachi Okamoto, 1978)

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blue-christmasThe Christmas movie has fallen out of fashion of late as genial seasonally themed romantic comedies have given way to sci-fi or fantasy blockbusters. Perhaps surprisingly seeing as Christmas in Japan is more akin to Valentine’s Day, the phenomenon has never really taken hold meaning there are a shortage of date worthy movies designed for the festive season. If you were hoping Blue Christmas (ブルークリスマス) might plug this gap with some romantic melodrama, be prepared to find your heart breaking in an entirely different way because this Kichachi Okamoto adaptation of a So Kuramoto novel is a bleak ‘70s conspiracy thriller guaranteed to kill that festive spirit stone dead.

A Japanese scientist disgraces himself and his country at an international conference by affirming his belief in aliens only to mysteriously “disappear” on the way back to his hotel. Intrepid reporter Minami (Tatsuya Nakadai) gets onto the case after meeting with a friend to cover the upcoming release of the next big hit – Blue Christmas by The Humanoids. His friend has been having an affair with the network’s big star but something strange happened recently – she cut her finger and her blood was blue. Apparently, hers is not an isolated case and some are linking the appearance of these “Blue Bloods” to the recent spate of UFO sightings. Though there is nothing to suggest there is anything particularly dangerous about the blue blood phenomenon, international tensions are rising and “solutions” are being sought.

A second strand emerges in the person of government agent, Oki (Hiroshi Katsuno), who has fallen in love with the assistant at his local barbers, Saeko (Keiko Takeshita). Responsible for carrying out assassinations and other nefarious deeds for the bad guys, Oki’s loyalty is shaken when a fellow officer and later the woman he loves are also discovered to be carriers of the dreaded blue blood.

Okamoto lays the parallels on a little thick at times with stock footage of the rise of Nazism and its desire to rid the world of “bad blood”. Sadly, times have not changed all that much and the Blue Bloods incite nothing but fear within political circles, some believing they’re sleeper agents for an alien invasion or somehow intended to overthrow the global world order. Before long special measures have been enforced requiring all citizens to submit to mandatory blood testing. The general population is kept in the dark regarding the extent of the “threat” as well as what “procedures” are in place to counter it, but anti Blue Blood sentiment is on the rise even if the students are on hand to launch the counter protest in protection of their blue blooded brethren, unfairly demonised by the state.

The “procedures” involve mass deportations to concentration camps in Siberia in which those with blue blood are interrogated, tortured, experimented on and finally lobotomised. This is an international operation with people from all over the world delivered by their own governments in full cognisance of the treatment they will be receiving and all with no concrete evidence of any kind of threat posed by the simple colouring of their blood (not that “genuine threat” would ever be enough to excuse such vile and inhuman treatment). In the end, the facts do not matter. The government has a big plan in motion for the holiday season in which they will stage and defeat a coup laid at the feet of the Blue Blood “resistance”, ending public opposition to their anti-Blue Blood agenda once and for all.

Aside from the peaceful protest against the mandatory blood testing and subsequent discrimination, the main opposition to the anti-Blue Blood rhetoric comes from the ironically titled The Humanoids with the ever present Blue Christmas theme song, and the best efforts of Minami as he attempts to track down the missing scientist and uncover the conspiracy. This takes him around the world – firstly to America where he employs the somewhat inefficient technique of simply asking random people in the street if they’ve seen him. Laughed out of government buildings after trying to make serious enquires, Minami’s last hope lies in a dodgy part of town where no one would even try to look, but he does at least get some answers. Unfortunately, the information he receives is inconvenient to everyone, gets him fired from the investigation, and eventually earns him a transfer to Paris.

In keeping with many a ‘70s political thriller, Blue Christmas is bleaker than bleak, displaying little of Okamoto’s trademark wit in its sorry tale of irrational fear manipulated by the unscrupulous. In the end, blue blood mingles with red in the Christmas snow as the bad guys win and the world looks set to continue on a course of hate and violence with a large fleet of UFOs apparently also on the way bearing uncertain intentions. Legend has it Okamoto was reluctant to take on Blue Christmas with its excessive dialogue and multiple locations. He had a point, the heavy exposition and less successful foreign excursions overshadow the major themes but even so Blue Christmas has, unfortunately, become topical once again. Imperfect and cynical if gleefully ironic in its frequent juxtapositions of Jingle Bells and genocide, Blue Christmas’ time has come as its central message is no less needed than it was in 1978 – those bleak political conspiracy thrillers you like are about to come back in style.

Original trailer (No subtitles)