Koichi Saito – Windows on Worlds

Two men are released from prison on the same day. One, dressed in a 1920s-style white suit and straw hat, tries to befriend the other, in black kimono and geta, but he ignores him. Soon, they arrive at a fork in the road. The man in the kimono walks down a well worn grass path cut between the fields while the man in white, looking back and a little disappointed, continues along the modern roadway making his way towards civilisation.

In some ways, the heroes of Koichi Saito’s The Homeless (無宿やどなし, Yadonashi) are embodiments of past and future. Jokichi (Ken Takakura), the kimonoed man in black, chooses the path of vengeance. On his release from prison, he learns that his gang leader older brother has been killed while his sister was sold to a brothel. He goes there to find her, but is told that she is already dead. The madam says she died of a chronic illness and that she did for her what she could but treating such a cruel disease is only throwing good money after bad. Sakie (Meiko Kaji), a sex worker who appears to have a childlike quality and possibly impaired mental state, tells a different story claiming the madam had Jokichi’s sister killed for reasons she doesn’t explain but may have more to do with the drama going on with Jokichi’s gang than a desire to cut costs and her losses.

Gen (Shintaro Katsu), meanwhile, seemingly chooses the path of prosperity. He returns to his wife, Ume (Murasaki Fujima), who is a member of a moribund theatrical troupe, and asks her to return to him what he believes is a treasure map marking the location where his father saw a ship sink during the Russo-Japanese war that may be filled with gold. On finding out Jokichi used to be a diver, Gen becomes determined to bring him onto his mission but Jokichi is set on revenge firstly on a man called Senzo (Noboru Ando) he thinks killed his sister and then on whoever ordered the hit on his brother. This bad news for Gen who realises that if he achieves his vengeance, Jokichi won’t be available to help retrieve the gold because he’ll be in prison so he starts by warning Senzo that his past’s about to catch up with him.

But it’s also Gen that helps Jokichi escape from the rival gang by suggesting he help rescue Sakie from her indentured servitude as sex worker. Childlike and ethereal, Sakie claims not to remember where she was from and has a simple desire to see the sea which represents to her a kind of freedom while for each of the men it may in fact form a kind of border they will eventually be backed up against and unable to escape. Though Sakie develops a fondness for Jokichi, and then begins to love Gen after he ends up taking care of her along the road, the three form a relationship that seems more fraternal or perhaps even forged on the homoerotic tension between the two men who light their cigarettes one from the other and finally find a home on an idyllic beach where they devote themselves to the search for buried treasure.

Sakie may say that the real treasure is her new life of freedom and warmth, but the hint of riches the two men find is itself rooted in warfare and imperialism which are the same forces by which they were each displaced amid the rising militarism of the 1930s. The three of them remain homeless in this environment, unable to fit into the changing society and by degrees exiled from it. An early title of the film was apparently Jingi no Okite (仁義の掟) which means “the law of honour and humanity” and that is in a way what Jokichi is bound by in his desire for vengeance, while Gen is clearly an anarchistic force unable to submit himself to authority and lusting after a more prosperous modernity. Sakie meanwhile is powerless as a woman with few rights, sold into sex work and technically a fugitive from the gang-backed brothel that owned her contract.

As beautiful as the beach is, we have the feeling that in some senses the three of them are already dead and living in their temporary paradise. Indeed, the past eventually catches up with them as if these three homeless fugitives cannot be allowed to survive in resistance to an authoritarian culture. Their existence is elegised by the beautifully composed cinematography along with the childlike rapport between the two men and the sense of domesticity which arises between the trio before reality bites and even their beachside idyll is invaded by the forces of darkness.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

“If human’s don’t trust each other, it’ll be the end of the world” – so says the cheerful hero at the heart of Koichi Saito’s The Rendezvous (約束, Yakusoku). Saito’s film is, somewhat unusually, a rare example of a Korean film remade in Japan. Inspired by Lee Man-hee’s Late Autumn (now sadly thought lost), The Rendezvous has been remade three times in Korea by such esteemed directors as Kim Ki-young (1975), Kim Soo-yong (1982) and most recently Kim Tae-young in 2010. There is indeed something particularly timeless in its tale of fate frustrating a fated love as each of our protagonists struggles to find the energy to rebel against their own sense of impossibility.

A brief framing sequence begins with a nervous, melancholy woman, Keiko (Keiko Kishi), sitting alone on a park bench, surrounded by the cheerful activity of athletes training, women pushing prams, and families enjoying the crisp sunshine. As she thinks back to what brought her here we travel back with her to a fateful train journey some years previously.

Keiko sits sadly by the window, impassively watching the sea stretch out as the train whizzes by. An older woman (Yoshie Minami) is sitting next to her, though they appear at least not to be on particularly friendly terms. At the first stop a younger man, Akira (Kenichi Hagiwara), gets on and sits down opposite Keiko, throwing a newspaper over his face, presumably to help him get some sleep (or, as we later wonder, perhaps just to better disappear). Intrigued, Keiko nevertheless shivers on catching sight of the paper’s headline – “Drunken Husband Stabbed to Death”. Knocking the paper off his head as she gets up to go to the bathroom, Keiko clips it back on for him with her hairpin – something that later gives him an excuse to talk to her when he eventually wakes up.

Akira, it turns out, is the chatty sort of person who enjoys making conversation with strangers. He makes a nuisance of himself trying to chat to Keiko and the old woman who ignore him, whilst accidentally frightening the bored little girl opposite by trying to entertain her. The ice finally thaws when Akira decides to buy everyone lunch – Keiko accepts and speaks to him if only to insist on paying him back (which the old lady then also feels compelled to do). Though very little actual conversation takes place on this first train journey, Akira is also travelling to the same small town as Keiko and continues to make a nuisance of himself by following her around. Nevertheless a connection begins to form between the pair, such perfect opposites in every way but one, though the time is always ticking and the encounter is one coloured by its impending end.

Keiko’s mysterious behaviour is later revealed to be more than just shyness or existential angst. Akira repeatedly asks for her trust, but she claims herself incapable of trusting anyone because in a sense she is already dead. Indeed, her entire aura is one of deliberate stillness, rarely speaking, and often leaning sadly against a more solid structure as if lacking the energy to fully support herself. Ironically enough, Keiko’s name is written with the character for “firefly” – a creature that burns out bright and then fades away. Keiko not only believes that her light has gone out, but that there are no more fireflies left. Akira, whose name is written not with the character for “bright” but with one for “cheerful”, begins to show her that there could be fireflies still, jokingly pointing to the lights from a nearby boat bobbing on the water.

We’re later told that the root of all Keiko’s suffering is “an absence of love”, that as passion cooled there was only emptiness in its place. “Emptiness” seems to be the force which defines Keiko’s existence, the reason her fire is out and her life apparently over. Though she feels a passionate attraction to Akira, she cannot bring herself to submit to it, both distrusting herself and afraid to face the possibility that it too will end. Both Keiko and Akira are fugitives from themselves, literally railroaded towards an inevitable conclusion they lack the courage to oppose. Akira wants to run, but Keiko knows she belongs on the train, incapable of escaping her self-imposed imprisonment and unwilling to step away from her unchanging destiny.

Fate follows them everywhere – violent headlines, prisoners being escorted, flashes of handcuffs, all reminding them that they are trapped, powerless in the face of an oncoming reckoning. Akira repeatedly asks Keiko to trust him, insisting that as long as she believes in him everything will be alright. Yet Akira is a flustered young man always in a hurry, running as if already late for the future. He makes Keiko a promise of a meeting and even gives her his watch to help her keep it, yet fails to appear. Akira’s heart may be trustworthy, but his body less so and even if he really wanted to come fate may have other plans. Love, it seems, is not enough. Saito returns to Keiko, sitting alone on the bench, waiting as the park empties and all the kids go home for tea. There’s no way to know if Akira can keep his promise even if he meant to, but perhaps there is something even so in the continued faith that he might simply bound in, hours late but as earnest as ever.

The central narrative seems to retain the Korean of sensibility of Lee’s original in its sense of dread and inevitability, and of passion repressed. Saito’s approach leans more towards misty European arthouse than your average Shochiku romance, making the most of its mystery as the time continues to run down for Keiko and Akira before they must prepare to meet their respective fates. Fate, at least, will wait for you and will always be there in the end. Impossibility defines the world of the defeated Keiko and the childlike Akira, but perhaps the most painful thing is hope itself, and the lingering faith that a promise will be kept despite the overwhelming odds.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Tag: Koichi Saito

The Homeless (無宿やどなし, Koichi Saito, 1974)

The Rendezvous (約束, Koichi Saito, 1972)