Harvest of War (Part I)
The title of this Ozu’s masterpiece has a deeper meaning than what “Early Summer” suggests.
Bank Managers and Mistresses (Part 3)
GINZA CONSMETICS (銀座化粧, 1951), WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS (女が階段を上る時, 1960) … In Mikio Naruse’s films, we meet vulnerable women in psychologically and economically trying situations and, often times, we find them working in Ginza nightclubs. “Hostesses”, as they are called, serve alcohols and entertain male customers in a dark and smoke-filled hall every night while they maneuver themselves to avoid troubles with them. Most of the customers are ‘salarymen’ looking for some flirtation and pseudo-love relationship with young hostesses, who are sometimes 30, 40 years junior. Customer’s logic is “we need consolation after a day of brutal corporate …
Bank Managers and Mistresses (Part 2)
This is part 2 of the ongoing series. Part 1 is here. In postwar Japanese films, you may find many stories of salarymen engaging in various forms of adultery: from flirting with young female coworkers to secretly building a love nest for his lover. Some films used such setup as a motive for crime, others as comedic interludes. Since bank employees, particularly managers, were considered as successful elites in upper crust milieu, some writers and filmmakers thought such an elite could make a good fall guy. Seicho Matsumoto’s novelette “Kanryu (Cold Current)” depicts a middle aged bank manager trapped in …