Kon Ichikawa | 細雪 (Sasame-yuki) (The Makioka Sisters) / 1983

swallowing the poison

by Douglas Messerli

 

Shinya Hidaka and Kon Ichikawa (writers), based on the novel Sasame-yuki by Tanizaki Junichirō, Kon Ichikawa (director) 細雪 (Sasame-yuki) (The Makioka Sisters) / 1983

 

Ichikawa’s beautifully filmed adaptation of Tanizaki’s masterwork begins in what is described as 1938 Osaka, at a time when families—in particular the noted Makioka family—join in strolls under the cherry blossoms. These first scenes of the film, rendered in the kind of oversaturated, but slightly fading images that we associate with the cinematic travelogues of the 1940s and early 1950s immediately tells us that this formal display of beauty represented by both the flowers and the carefully chosen kimono costumes of the major characters is a thing of the past, something that will not last.

     Indeed, there is a kind of fragility to all of Ichikawa’s scenes throughout the movie, a quality of the film, in its extended close-ups of characters and theatrically presented glimpses into family life, that makes us sense we are witnessing something that at any moment might collapse.

     Although Japan is at war throughout much of the film, and the shortages of food and products is every now and then mentioned, one would hardly know from the manner in which these sisters live that Japan was suffering any hardships. Daughters of a renowned shipbuilding father, the four Makioka sisters live in two houses, the larger house ruled over by the eldest, Tsuruko, her businessman husband (who has taken the Makioka family name) and their several children; the slightly smaller home is ruled by Sachiko, a more open-minded and practical woman, married to an accountant (who also is now a Makioka). Because of issues relating to a family “scandal”—the youngest sister Taeko has attempted to elope but the newspapers has mistakenly published the name of the third eldest sister, the quite properly behaved Yukiko—the two have moved out of Tsuruko’s rule and into Sachiko’s smaller domain.

       The plot of this complex interweaving of family life, in some respects, bares resemblance to a grand soap-opera; but unlike, say, the American play August: Osage County I review later in this volume, the family battles and sexual intrigues, for the most part, in the work are kept at the level of a whisper. And for that reason, the narrative, at times, is purposely thwarted as characters again and again are cut off in conversation and forced to recover their restraint as servants and other family members come and go; these people most certainly do “duke it out,” so to speak, but smile and bow as they thrust in the knife. The tension this creates demands the viewer pay attention to every word and gesture of this wonderfully talented ensemble, as politesse is subtly transformed into bitter hate, as love quietly acquiesces to despair and pain.

      On the surface, the major actions of these sisters center around the third eldest daughter as they attempt to marry her off to a suitable suitor before the independently-minded Taeko ruins all chances of family respectability—something that matters intensely to the Makioka brood.

     It is fascinating to watch the procedures as the family meets each potential husband for Yukiko. The formal first meeting with the suitor and family members, however, is repeated in more and more informal settings as Yukiko turns down each marriage offer. The final meeting, with a handsome, young man of a noted family, is a somewhat embarrassing get-together at the man’s own home. Higashiya seems to have tried out every career before becoming a worker in a aeronautics factory, but with him, sitting in the least formal of settings, Yukiko finally finds love.

     Taeko, meanwhile, who desires to become a doll-maker, and who lives alternatively with a young “rich kid” without any money and a photographer using her, it appears, to gain a studio, ultimately runs away from home again, this time with the owner of a local bar. When she tells her sister that she now is able to earn money by being a seamstress, we can only note the pained look of Sachiko, as she gently turns away, trying to hide her feelings of shame.

      It is this subtlety of feeling and expression along with the genuine love between the sisters and their husbands that saves this work from becoming a Dallas or August: Osage County, and rescues Tanizaki’s great study of mid-20th century Japanese life from a more course expression of stereotypes. Although Tsuruko may imperiously resist her husband’s decision to move his family from Osaka to Toyko, she ultimately gives in to his wishes, seemingly recognizing that despite her desires she cannot continue to live in the past. Although Sachiko clearly suffers over her husband’s illicit affair with Yukiko, she wisely refuses to transform it into a crisis, quietly determining to marry off her sister as quickly as possible.

        What is so touching about the relationships of these people is that none of them, except perhaps Taeko, will survive another year. As the fine, melting snow drifting to earth at the end of this film (the original title, Sasame-yuki, means just that: a fine, melting snow) these fragile women, dressed in their elegant wrappings, will likely be unable to suffer through the post-war destruction of Japan. In the last narrative sequence of the film, we witness Sachiko’s husband Teinosuke alone in a restaurant, drinking himself into oblivion as tears fall from his eyes. He has lost his illicit sexual partner, yes, but he seems also to be lapping up what he himself describes as “the poison” he and his family must soon swallow. It is their world, the world of people like the Makiokas, after all, that sent Japan into war.

      The final images, set to an almost militantly sweet melody, return us to the picture-postcard world of the early part of the movie, images that we recognize no longer can exist.   

 

  

Los Angeles, June 25, 2008

Reprinted from Nth Position [England] (August 2008) and Reading Films: My International Cinema (Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2012).