Anata no ai wa kaenai... In the Shadow of Yoshiwara (1928), with Sabrina Zimmerman & Mark Pogolski, Bonn Silent Film Festival 2024

Yoshiwara: wine and women, the place of pleasure and market of love…

 

Teinosuke Kinugasa’s film came some two years after his ground smashing A Page of Madness (1926), described by some bloke on IMDB as “hardly a crowd pleaser” although I’d have to say this depends on the crowd. In the Shadow of Yoshiwara aka Jūjiro (Crossroads) became the most widely distributed Japanese film overseas up to that point with the director/writer bringing a copy himself on the Trans-Siberian Express.

 

Clearly influenced by European cinema in terms of his use of shadows, double and multiple exposure, Kinugasa also cut quickly and used montage to heighten moments of dramatic tension. This copy features German and English translation and so it’s unlikely it was from a print screened with Benshi and is possibly from the original German release in Berlin, as Im Schatten des Yoshiwara (The Shadows of Yoshiwara). The style of performance is altogether home-grown with exaggerated, febrile movements accompanying extended expression – heads are thrown back in evil laughter and bodies shake with anger and sadness. It’s a mix of the heavily stylized Kabuki theatrical tradition with more western-styled film acting and it makes this film the opposite of say Yasujirō Ozu whose Dreams of Youth was released in the same year.

 

Yoshiwara is set in the red-light district of Tokyo and it’s a studio-bound just like a UFA film and benefits from the atmospheric compression this brings – is this a subconscious awareness or are our eyes just so hard to fool even in a mostly darkened set. A young man (Junosuke Bando) has made the classic mistake of falling for a courtesan, in this case O-ume, the beauty of Yoshiwara (Yukiko Ogawa). He returns home to the rooms he shares with his sister (‍Akiko Chihaya) battered and upset after fighting for his love with men who clearly are not of the romantic persuasion.

 

Junosuke Bando

Don’t go out today, stay with me brother…

 

The sister is calm in both her emoting and response to his hysteria, making sure their door is locked – it isn’t as their landlord pops his head in to ask if they’re alright – and trying to prevent her brother from further exposing himself to danger. The young man just can’t help himself and rushes off taking a newly made kimono she has made as a token to impress O-ume… It is genuinely pathetic and watching his desperation to win the heart of this woman who no doubt cannot afford to reciprocate, is painful.

 

Firstly, he is struck to the ground by one of the shogun patrons and he lies on the ground terrified of returning the challenge and then, a more evenly matched opponent, the one he bested the night before (Keinosuke Sawada as Myoichiro Ozawa) takes his chance for revenge by pouring hit ash on his face. The boy is blinded and if he expected any sympathy he’s in the wrong place as he cries out for O-ume, lashing around before confronting his hateful rival and, striking without thought, or direction, believing he has killed him.

 

He runs off in the direction of home as the other man bounces up to reveal that he was only pretending… the brothel erupts in laughter and heads are thrown back with evil relish. The contrast with his sister’s compassion could not be greater and when a doctor offers hope that he may be able to regain his sight if she is able to pay for treatment she is faced with only one option… She goes to see the local “procuress” (Yoshie Nakagawa) who will be able to set her up with potential clients willing to pay for her favours and, worse still, there toothless policeman – a revoltingly-leary Minoru Takase (as Ippei Sōma) – is willing to go to the head of the queue.

Akiko Chihaya

What hope is there for these two in a world in which there is a price for everything and honour is so casually thrown away in exchange for power and possession.

 

Reading William O. Gardner’s observations in the catalogue, Kinugasa was drawing parallels in this story set in 1850 during the late period of Edo Japan with the modern consumerist society that Japan had become by this point when it was still a laissez-faire liberal democracy, albeit one beginning to restrict opposition with an establishment concerned about the relatively swift changes in society. The filmmaker saw “…an “entertainment” world made possible by an advanced money economy…” and the desperation of the ordinary working people to take part not only in the past but in the economically stricken period of the 1920s.

 

In this context, when there’s a price to be paid for sight and love no wonder some of the poorest people are crushed in front of our very eyes.

 

Accompaniment on the stream was from Sabrina Zimmerman on piano and Mark Pogolski on violin who matched the intensity on screen and reached through to the turmoil of the young siblings faced with a choice between madness and self-obliteration. Not the easiest of watches but a very impactful experience.

  

¹ William O. Gardner: New Perceptions: Kinugasa Teinosuke’s Films and Japanese Modernism, in: Cinema Journal, Vol. 43, No. 3, 2004

 

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The crossroads...

The One Rōnin… Castle of Wind and Clouds (1928), with Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius, Silent Film Days Bonn 2023

A terrible plot is forged around a castle in the south. Good and loyal subjects already fell under the hand of the devils…

Another journey of discovery and a startling film produced by the director of A Page of Madness (1926), Teinosuke Kinugasa, and directed by Toko (aka Fujie) Yamazaki making this the first Japanese silent I’ve seen directed by a woman. Castle… aka Fûun jôshi was made for Kinugasa, part of the Shimogamo studio, it’s a stylish jidai geki, a Japanese period drama involving a samurai clan in this case one poisoned by treachery in which a lone warrior must put honour above his own interests and loyalty to authority above love all and, of course, he must fight.

Almost as soon as the cameras started rolling, the genre made it to screen in Kōchiyama to Nao-zamurai (1916) and was well established by the twenties, flourishing later with classics such as The 47 Ronin (1941), Rashomon (1950) and Seven Samurai (1954). It’s the Japanese equivalent of the western or chivalric tale, honour and duty aligned to bravery, love and combat skill… lone heroes making a difference. The highpoint of any such film is the action but also the moral force painful decisions made in the name of duty something we all relate to.

The film begins and ends with similar shots of a man on horseback, riding down/up the same spiral path from the land beyond all with a gorgeous pink tint. It’s a young man, Shinhachi (Chojiro Hayashi), who has returned home from years of training in the capital, to the land he grew up in and his head is filled with lyrical thoughts of the land, the light and his beautiful fiancée Chigusa (Akiko Chihaya) who has pledged to wait as long as it takes, lonely and sad, until you come back…

Chojiro Hayashi

He is met by his elder brother Einoshin (Sôroku Kazama) and informed that “storm and turmoil await” as the clan is being poisoned by their treacherous uncle, Sannosuke (Ippei Soma). Hayashi, later Kazuo Hasegawa, was just twenty and at the start of a huge film career stretching over 300 films from 1927 to 1968. Here his persona is that of a bidanshi, an androgynous youth – literally “beautiful boy” – in a tradition that stretches way back into Japanese literature and is very “gender” as my daughter might say as this guy can fight; a peacock with a dazzling blade (make of that what you will…).

By contrast Sannosuke is a gurning mask of evil superbly pantomimed by Soma who pulls the eye with dark, almost comic malevolence but whilst these characterisations may seem black and white there’s more graduated tints around the head of the clan, Lord Hachiya Teruaki (Keinosuke Sawada as Myoichiro Ozawa), a tyrant and yet with a sense of fairness all his own. He is unaware of the machinations against him, distracted by orgies and festivities, revelling in lust and luxury.

If you really love her, kill your rival and she will return to your arms…

Akiko Chihaya

Shinhachi is reunited with his sweetheart but in the Lord’s court where he has taken her as one of his concubines… Sannosuke immediately tries to take advantage of the young man’s despair, urging him to kill their leader and take his love back. Shinhachi is however, steadfast and not the hot-headed young samurai Sannosuke hopes, warrior he is though and calm in the midst of conflict and hand to hand combat: I am willing to give my life for our Lord and our clan. The long, poetic intertitles are perhaps a reflection of the benshi-style narration that would have accompanied the film’s original screenings.

Angered by Shinhachi’s unyielding loyalty, Sannosuke arranges for a group of assassins to despatch him but things do not work out as he planned as the young man holds them off before being joined by another martial arts expert from the clan Nikaido Juppeita (Shinkuro Masamune) who, after helping despatch the assassins in a set piece fight that wouldn’t look out of place in many a later film, warns him of the escalating danger. 

Meanwhile our young hero’s brother Einoshin’s illness is getting worse as Shinhachi goes home to see him and his mother (Yoshie Nakagawa). This film’s all heart as well as action and the emotional sacrifices to be made only heighten the dramatic impact of the core messages about discipline and loyalty.

They're outnumbered one-to-nine...

My body is the sacrifice of my desperate love. But my soul is always with you.

Shinhachi plays the flute outside of Chigusa’s quarters and his love hears him… the two exchange words of resigned longing… Then walking in the grounds, he encounters a group of assassins who have tried to kill the Lord, he fights them off using his flute and superior technique but the next day is accused of being one of them by the Lord’s guards and asked to prove his innocence or commit hara-kiri. To protect the family’s honour and buy his brother time, Einoshin kills himself, certain f his brother’s innocence and pleading for him to always stay loyal to their Lord.

You spiteful bandits, meet my martial art! Be ready.

This the scene is set for more superbly choreographed battles as Shinhachi fights for his love, his honour and his clan as the full extent of Sannosuke’s plan are revealed and well, you just have to see it all for yourself. The direction is flowing and the sense of place so well maintained with cinematography from Eiji [Eiichi] Tsuburaya who went on to have a huge career including the development of special effects, he was co-creator of the Godzilla and Ultraman franchises, and some 300 films.

Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius have martial, musical discipline of their own and armed with flute, piano and a multitude of objects to hit, played along with the action and the emotion. Ninjas of silent film accompaniment, you hear them when they want you too but are otherwise seamlessly invisible within the whole experience of a screening, loyal, as Shinhachi to the Prince, to the art on screen. They played a blinder and I really hope to see this film and their music in the UK sometime.

Another special discovery courtesy of Bonn. As I said, next year it’s a date!

Shinkuro Masamune

Ippei Soma

Chojiro Hayashi, Yoshie Nakagawa and Sôroku Kazama

Keinosuke Sawada

Akiko Chihaya

Kinugasa + In the Nursery, Barbican… A Page of Madness (1926)

Masuo Inoue

Just when you think you’ve seen it all a silent film comes along and knocks lazy preconceptions into touch or rather, in the case of this film, disorientates and then beats them severely around the head with a mop!

Teinosuke Kinugasa’s A Page of Madness (狂った一頁 or Kurutta Ippeji) is so accomplished, so fully formed, that it appears to have come from nowhere – standing apart from American and European sensibilities it borrows elements and then re-interprets them in the most technically proficient and – naturally – Japanese way. It’s an uncomfortable and searingly honest film featuring a dazzling array of camera trickery and a structure that places considerable demands on the audience.

Think David Lynch meets Abel Gance via FW Murnau (Kinugasa chose The Last Laugh as his favourite film…)   and you’d be part of the way there but there’s an narrative integrity that you wouldn’t find in some contemporary avant-garde cinema… a clear storyline that just needs to be interpreted and without the aid of a single inter-title.

Much effort has been devoted to interpreting the film and yet watching it cold and without fore-knowledge of the story you have to make sense of what you can in those moments. I’ve subsequently re-watched it and read a bit more around the plot which feels very much like cheating… the film works on a number of levels and first impressions sit the deepest.

Viewers in 1926 may not have had to work so hard. There has been debate over whether the film would have been accompanied by a Benshi – a film narrator, but a 1977 interview with Kinugasa confirms that one was used: there is a specific meaning and the story isn’t a purely “surreal” or impressionistic tale.

There’s also a suggestion from scholar Alexander Jacoby, in his book A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan, that the director re-edited the film on its rediscovery to remove more traditional narrative sections and to conform more precisely with contemporary avant-garde perceptions. (A review of the book can be found on the Midnight Eye site. Not everything is ever as it seems, it seems…).

Screen shot: Yoshie Nakagawa

The film was playing as part of the London Barbican’s wonder: art and science on the brain season of events and featured expert  live accompaniment from Sheffield electronica duo In the Nursery – who provided such a memorable soundtrack to Elvey’s Hindle Wakes - they’re nothing if not versatile, as this film could hardly be more different.

A Page of Madness is based on a story treatment by future Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata, probably amongst a number of others… It is set in a mental asylum where Kinugasa sets out the interior lives of the tormented inmates alongside their external realities.

Eiko Minami

There’s a ballet dancer (Eiko Minami) who furiously dances in her cell whilst in her own mind she is on an elaborate stage with the strangest set design: a giant furry ball that spins continuously behind her. She’s the signal for emotional shifts in the story: almost like a choreographic Greek chorus of one.

In the next door cell is a middle aged woman (Yoshie Nakagawa), tortured by her murder (or near murder – opinions seem to differ) of her child. She’s in contorted agony and unable to help herself even when offered the chance.

Unbeknownst to all, the woman’s husband (a truly amazing performance from Masuo Inoue) is employed as the asylum’s janitor. He took the job to help his wife but she looks beyond salvation and yet naturally, being a film audience, we hope for something...

Yoshie Nakagawa

Their daughter (Ayako Iijima) arrives to inform her mother that she is getting engaged and yet she didn’t know her father was working there… there follows arguments and dreams and what may be an attempted break out. But the wife will not leave and the Janitor is frustrated…drifting into a reverie that may be the continuation of an earlier dream.

Ayako Iijima

What happens and what is merely dreamt and… does it matter? One of the clearest signals in the film is when the Janitor calms some of the inmates by attaching Noh masks to their faces. In an instant they are calmed and, like the masks, you feel they are smiling. Without the mask of a smile inner thoughts are revealed all too readily.

The cast is a very strong one with Nakagawa presenting an especially harrowing take on the desolate mindscape of this woman who has, literally, lost everything.

But it is Masuo Inoue who holds the film and encapsulates the meaning… a very naturalistic performer his technique is one of the purest expressions of Lillian Gish’s stated aim to be never caught “acting” by the audience. He anchors the story and provides us with an identifiable “hero” and his shifts into hysteria are all the more shocking for this.  But does he lose it or does he dream it?

Kinugasa directs with great invention and dexterity. He borrows from everyone he could in order to show these tormented “inner lives”, deploying the full range of his influences in his own unique manner… There are extensive dolly shots, montage and double/triple exposures, “whip pans” – you’ll know the instant you see one what that means - and spotlighting. As the writer Vlada Petric stated, the film’s “cinematic structure includes virtually every film device known at the time…”

Triple exposure

It is so well controlled and serves the story well but, as Kinugasa said later, this “…was less important than technical experimentation: tracking shots, close-ups, rapid montage, flashbacks, dissolves, irises, etc. In this film I used almost every avant-garde technique.” 

Given the problems of understanding the story in its present form – even the 75 minute 2007 restoration - musical accompaniment takes on an additional importance. In the Nursery did a sterling job of “explaining” the action, the shifts from reality to dream… guiding our emotional response to actions that may be random and may be fantasy. This takes finesse and the delicate touch of experience – you can imagine all kinds of free-form “solutions” to A Page of Madness’ soundtrack but this film demands a disciplined response.

As it was, the boys provided the perfect musical “Benshi”.

A dream winner

Sadly A Page of Madness is not available on DVD except in a cheap-shot 3D version which bills it as a horror film. Hopefully this longer restored version will be available in more respectful circumstances at some point – c’mon Criterion!

In the meantime you can watch the 60 minute version on grainy YouTube and try to sync the In The Nursery CD as best you can!


There's a fascinating interview with Kinugasa expert Mariann Lewinsky also on the Midnight Eye site.

Some hope by the end?