the weak and the strong
by Douglas Messerli
Tadao Ikeda (screenplay, based on a story by Mikio Naruse), Mikio Naruse (director) 夜ごとの夢
Yogoto no yume (Every-Night Dreams)
/ 1933
Mikio Naruse and Kenji Mizoguchi
created, as I have stated previously, a sub-genre dealing with women suffering
financial destitution who have forced to work as prostitutes. Omitsu (Sumiko
Kurishima) in Naruse’s famed silent from 1933 is just such a woman, whose
husband having abandoned her, has been forced to work at a Ginza bar catering
to sailors in order to support her son, Fumio (the charming Teruko Kojima).
Like the hostess featured in Naruse’s
wonderful film of three decades later, When
a Woman Descends the Stairs, it is obvious that Omitsu is a skilled worker,
who is popular with the men, but who would also prefer to be free from her work
living simply as a loving mother.
The neighbor encourages her to find a regular job or to marry a man who
will provide for her, but it is also clear that Omitsu sees herself as a fallen
woman for whom there are no other choices left. At several times, she excuses
herself from the sexual advances of clients by describing herself as an “old
hag.” It is, after all, the depression era when choices for working women, as
Naruse makes clear, were few.
Suddenly into this stew of repressed
desires and dreams comes Omitsu’s former husband, Mizuhara, a handsome but
frail individual who regrets his previous choices, and is desperate to simply
see his son. At first, Omitsu, still hurt by his abonnement, absolutely rejects
him. She argues that his behavior alone has helped her to be hard and strong;
pleading and tears no longer affect her. Indeed, if there is any one “theme” of
this film it is her inner strength and her determination that her young son
grow up to be an equally “strong” man.
Yet when, accidently, Fumio enters the
room during their conversation, and she sees the immediate bond between the
two, Omitsu displays her own weakness; she still loves the man who has failed
her, who can find no new employment. As Mizuhara, himself, puts it, he has “no
luck with work.” Most of the available jobs demand hard labor, and his thin,
almost sickly frame, immediately disqualifies him from those jobs.
The director also begins to build up, through subtle directorial moments, the very precariousness of Fumio’s life, poising the child, at one point, on a huge concrete tube as he watches his father clumsily playing baseball with slightly older children. In this marvelous scene, we not only recognize that Mizuhara is still a child at heart, unable to even participate in the adult world wherein he might protect his son, but also observe, in the strange positioning of the child, just how dangerous Fumio’s young life is; and, of necessity, we can foretell that he may suffer some sort of disaster.
Hit by a car, Fumio survives nonetheless, but the needed hospital care
spirals his already poverty-stricken family into a situation from which they
can never escape. Since Mizuhara has failed at finding a job, even though he
vaguely attempts to find one, it is clear that Omitsu will have to give in the
demands of the much-hated Captain.
But, even worse, determining to take his share of the responsibility,
Mizuhara commits a robbery, attempting to reward Omitsu with the money not only
to live up to his patriarchal duties, but to protect the life of his beloved
son.
If as an immoral woman, Omitsu is strong, as a mother she is highly
moral and committed, and will not except his stolen gains, insisting that he
turn himself into police, and serve out what ever sentence they may invoke.
Recognizing that he has failed yet again, Mizuhara determines to leave, if
nothing else than to allow Omitsu to support her son in a way that does not involve
in his criminal behavior.
He leaves her, but this time forever, by drowning himself in the nearby
ocean, and, even worse, with his punishing act of writing a desperate suicide
note. His wife returns to her suffering son to answer his questions as to where
his father has gone, angrily declaiming him as a coward and weakling, once again
instructing her son to grow up to be strong. She will certainly have to be,
since she clearly will never find salvation from the life she hates.
Orange, California, February 17, 2017
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (February 2017).
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