dir. Tomu Uchidawrit. Yasutaro Yagi, Tatsuzo Ishikawa
feat. Mie Kitahara, Rentaro Mikuni, Yumeji Tsukioka, Jukichi Uno, Nobuo Kaneko
Yeah, that's a lot of stars you've never heard of and I can't pronounce most of the names either, but they all deserve billing. This film is loaded with great performances. It's postwar Japan and some fear that the country is fast becoming a colony of the United States. Still, that doesn't stop the bedridden brother from playing the stock market with the family money while his sister battles her pride, the chance to be a modern woman, and a persistent desire for romance as she considers her potential suitors.
Father has recently passed away and the stepmother seems to be angling for the same man that she is pushing on her stepdaughter. That man, Ihara, the successful divorced doctor, is the new modern man, finished with love, a consumer with a good future, unafraid to flaunt it. Then there is Komatsu, the quiet dreamer, the wanderer who appears first in the film, sleeping in a hole (or maybe a drainage ditch), thought dead, and immediately scolded for "bothering people" when he wakes and walks off on his journey. His problem seems to be his lack of daring, though he seems content and admits to preferring to spend his time alone.
The movie is a swirl of new (1955) archetypes, not of all which fall into easy categorization. What is the brother's illness? Could it be heartache wrought by the wife that deserted him? His unwillingness to engage in family squabbles seems to complement his nearly paralyzed state, that bag of ice hanging down from post to lay gently on his head. Most interesting (and tragic) is Tamiko, the sister who can't seem to find her place in this changing world, wanting it all to make sense and meet her demands but without the map to chart that course. Her unwillingness to bend leaves her heroic yet alone, having dug that hole with pride.
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