Tag: Bonpei Yamagata

Rainbow Hill (虹立つ丘, Toshio Otani, 1938)

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The cheerful life of a brother and sister in Hakone is disrupted by an unexpected revelation in Toshio Otani’s heartwarming drama, Rainbow Hill (虹立つ丘, Niji Tatsu Oka). In some ways, displaying an affluent quality of life perhaps unrealistic for the Japan of the late 30s, the theme is really family is and the importance of blood relations as one family is broken so another can be restored in a moment of healing and reconciliation with the traumatic past.

Shot predominantly on location at the luxury Gora Hotel in Hakone, the film revolves around a young girl, Yuri (Hideko Takamine), who works in the hotel’s shop while her bother Yatahachi (Akira Kishii) is also works at the hotel as a porter. The pair are incredibly close and would do anything for each other, though Yatahachi is also forced to conduct a romance somewhat clandestinely. He generally waits for Yuri to go to sleep before meeting his girlfriend, Fuji (Chizuko Kanda), who works in a local amusement centre. Yuri, however, is getting older and doesn’t always want to go to sleep early, which is the first note of discordance in their relationship in implying that Yatahachi’s childcare responsibilities stand in the way of marriage. Fuji, however, is also very fond of Yuri and sometimes looks after her when Yatahachi is not able to. 

The second note of discordance is when Yatahachi is dismissed from the hotel for having deserted his post after hearing that Yuri has fallen off a cliff and running off to save her. Though this is quite a valid reason for abruptly leaving work without permission, Yatahachi does not explain to his boss but only accepts his fate stocially while accepting that it was wrong of him to leave and that his actions caused the hotel reputational harm. Important guests were due from Manchuria and were apparently forced to carry their own bags. 

Another hotel guest who has become friendly with Yuri, Mrs Hayakawa (Sachiko Murase), who is staying at the hotel to recover from an illness, complains to the manager and gets Yatahachi reinstated with a promotion. Frequent guests the Hayakawas have some clout at the hotel, as perhaps do their friends the Mizutanis whose bag Yatahachi ends up tearing when asked to open it after the little boy loses his key. The film doesn’t really draw much of a contrast between the worlds of the people who stay in this luxury hotel and those who work in it, save that Yuri is full of tales of Mrs Hayakawa’s Western-style Tokyo home where she apparently has two dogs the size of Yatahachi. The pair, by contrast, live in quite a nice, if humble, traditional home and appear to have a good standard of life. 

Yuri is, however, somewhat drawn to Mrs Hayakawa who seems to fulfil the missing maternal role in her life by giving her gifts and taking her on outings. It’s not until Mrs Hayakawa visits her home and sees a familiar doll that she begins to suspect she could be the daughter from whom she was separated during the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. The question then becomes whether it is right to disclose Yuri’s true identity and take her away from the brother with whom she has been so close. In another sign of his goodness, Yatahachi presumably found Yuri amid the chaos. Lacking any means of identifying her and believing that her parents were likely dead, he raised her himself as his sister. Though sensitive to the situation, the Hayakawas want her back. With them Yuri would have more opportunities and a better quality of life as a wealthy young woman in the capital, but it would also break Yuri and Yatahachi’s hearts. That Yuri agrees to go with them while Yatahachi accepts he must let her go to her biological parents hints at the importance of bloodlines and the necessity of familial restoration that acts as a means of laying the traumatic event of the earthquake to rest. Mrs Hayakawa’s malady is cured on having found her missing daughter, though she still vows to return to the hotel in the spring so Yuri and Yatahachi can be reunited. This also paves the way for a marriage between Fuji and Yatahachi as the pair look forward to welcoming Yuri’s return together.

An early leading role for Takamine, the film also features cameos from a series of other Toho stars as the hikers who rescue Yuri after she falls off the cliff, while Akira Kishii performs a few songs including a Japanese version of Home on the Range enhancing the film’s international feeling. It is perhaps unexpectedly breezy for the time period and basks in the lives of the super rich at a time when others are struggling to get by, but nevertheless offers a bittersweet and heartwarming tale of familial reconciliation and renewed hope for the future.

Travelling Actors (旅役者, Mikio Naruse, 1940)

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“You can’t have a horse without the ass” admits a travelling actor, inwardly preparing to meet his obsolescence. Anything’s an art if you care to practice it, but there is such a thing as taking yourself too seriously. A masterclass in tragicomedy, Naruse’s 1940 character study Travelling Actors (旅役者, Tabi Yakusha) finds two ends of a pantomime horse about to be torn apart when their act is unwittingly destroyed by a resentful punter whose drunken attempt to escape his sense of humiliation in being tricked by unscrupulous promoters leaves their horse without a head. 

Hyoroku (Kamatari Fujiwara) prides himself on being the “Danjuro of pantomime horses”, performing with the younger Senpei (Kan Yanagiya) who looks up to him as if he really were a great master of the arts. The guys are part of a group of travelling players touring rural Japan performing traditional skits for an audience starved of entertainment. The troupe is not, however, above exploitative business practices, proudly advertising the appearance of “Kikugoro” but neglecting to mention that it’s not the famous one, just another guy with the same name. Meanwhile, someone has to foot the bill for “producing” the show wherever the actors land, leading the exploitative producers to convince a local barber (Ko Mihashi) to invest, hoping to get a little free publicity because he’s known to be the town gossip and can spread the word through his shop. The plan backfires, however, when he travels to the station to see them arrive and immediately realises they are not a fancy acting company from Tokyo but a bunch of ragged bumpkins. Feeling thoroughly fed up, he demands to be allowed to perform in the show as the price of his silence before getting black out drunk and passing out backstage, crushing the papier-mâché horse’s head in his desperation to find somewhere soft to land. 

As “Kikugoro” points out, the “guy who plays the pantomime horse is really picky” so they know they’re in for some trouble as soon as he finds out what’s happened to his head. In fact, Hyoroku was just in the middle of some remodelling, trying to make the head look even more realistic to improve his art. While the barber is destroying his life’s work, Hyoroku and Senpei are drinking with a pair of geishas who are pretending to be interested in Hyoroku’s mini lecture about his process in which he tells them all about how he’s really captured the true essence of the horse through patiently honing his craft all these long years. 

There might be something in that, that Hyoroku is a workhorse of the theatre now more beast than man. Just occasionally, his horsey mannerisms come out in his offstage life, scratching the floor with his feet or pacing the room like a penned in pony. Though there are other sides of him which are painfully human. He makes a point of belittling Senpei in front of the geishas, insulting his art to assert his place as the teacher, always keen to keep his pupil in his place. But as Senpei points out, you can’t have a horse without the ass, and his “art” is no less important than Hyoroku’s. Continuing to take himself way too seriously, Hyoroku refuses to perform with the broken head, flatly objecting to the suggestion of substituting one from the fox costumes because he can’t get into character when his head’s in the wrong place. 

Faced with the prospect of cancelling the show, the producers come up with a radical idea – hiring a real horse. In a still more ironic touch, they even sell this horse who is making his stage debut as a star in his own right, only realising the dangers of their situation when it urinates right in the middle of the act. Weirdly, that only makes the horse a hit and convinces the troupe they’re on to a winner, which is bad news for the boys because who wants to see two guys in an ugly costume when they could be gazing at the real thing. The days of the pantomime horse are ending, but where does that leave a “great master” like Hyoroku who has spent his life becoming more horsey than a horse? Kicked out of the inn and forced to sleep backstage as non-performers, the guys eventually suffer the indignity of being offered jobs as stable boys, mere servants to the star who has replaced them. 

In an unguarded moment, Hyoroku and Senpei reflect on where they are as a young man in a soldier’s uniform leads a patient horse off to war. “That could be us” they sigh, though it’s not clear if they mean the man or the horse, before going back to horsing around eating shaved ice and flirting with the store owner. “I’m just the horse’s ass”, Senpei laments, secretly hoping to become a “real” actor at last, only for Hyoroku to uncharacteristically start encouraging him before dragging him off on another crazy adventure. Putting the fox’s head on to make a point, Hyoroku disappears into the role, chasing his rival right out of town, dragging his back legs behind him as he goes.