The movie "Wanderings/Ryu れる" (1956) Korean DVD version of the cover
Wanderings/ Ryu れる (1956) was the third self-directed film released by Akio Naruse (1905-1969) in 1956, and impressively it is the most complex of the three films. "Wandering" is based on a novel by female writer Fumi Yukita. The screenplays written by Tanaka Sumire (1908-2000) and Toshiro Inoue (1910-1988) are masterpieces of film script writing, involving a series of amazing sideline plots related to the endangered geisha houses. The film constantly switches between characters, but it is firmly centered on Tsukinoya, where Tokyo's old "Red Light District" is located near the Sumida River. This is one of the few Japanese films that penetrates the walls of the female world without sentiment or pleasure.
Stills from the movie "Wanderings/Ryusuke" (1956), from left to right: Moko Awajima, Hideko Takayama, Isuzu Yamada, and Atsuyo Tanaka
A strong cast of top actresses and only a few insignificant male characters make the film a very important female film in all of Naruse's works, and although the story is quite complex, the production design of the film is faithful to the director's labeled use of Japanese family architecture to achieve a sense of stylistic simplicity and formality. In fact, as the women of Tsukinoya face changes in society, the film concludes with a reaffirmation of the traditional music and dance art that the geisha house was founded.
Tsukinoya consists of two adjacent houses, one is the kitchen, one is the maid's room, one is the entrance passage, one leads to the corridor to the first floor, and the second floor is where the woman Tsubasa (Yamada Isuzu) and daughter Katsuyo (Hideko Takayama) live.
Kakuge, "Naganami: Flowing" (1956) Koteru, Yamada Isaju (right) Hideko Watakamine
The house was a geisha house, and the geisha registered before and after the date; they had to pay a percentage of the date that the lady had arranged for them and the reputation of the geisha house. The downstairs is rather narrow, and geisha can always overhear other people's conversations, including making phone calls in the hallway. The geisha house is frequented by delivery people, family members, doctors, money lenders, and of course, the women of the geisha house.
In addition to these noisy events, Tsubasa would occasionally entertain visitors in her spacious room. She also dressed there and showed off her elegance as a successful geisha. Abandoned by her husband, she suffers misfortune in love and owes money to her sister Aho (Natsuko Kawara), which she gives to her niece Yonako (Chieko Nakatoku) and Yonako's daughter Fujiko (Natsuko Matsuyama).
"Naganami/ Flowing" (1956) Koteru, Mariko Koda
Fujiko has been trained as a geisha since she was six years old, and the film opens and ends with her dancing to the accompaniment of a shamisen. In the world of geisha, the future of the geisha house depends more or less on this child, because Katsuyo, his own daughter, has decided not to follow in her mother's footsteps.
The film's more important plot involves the fate of the geisha house itself, which is triggered by an incident at the beginning of the film, in which a young geisha from the countryside, Namie (Izumi Chiyo), accuses Tsunade of cheating on her. Katsuo defends her mother, even as she later admits that there are ambiguities in the geisha's accounts. In fact, it is not sex but money that becomes the main circulation in Wandering. Namie's uncle came to the geisha house and demanded 300,000 yen in compensation, and he was drunk and rushed into the house with a loud cry, and Tsunade was forced to borrow money from Ahama of Mizunoya.
"Nagarera: Flowing" (1956) Koteru, Takamine Hideko
Ahama was played by veteran actress Moko Awajima (1902-1987), who played the female lead in Akio Naruse's 1933 work Night Dream/ 夜ごとの夢. Ahama is an official in the geisha industry and the proprietor of her own geisha house. As an imposing figure, she has an authority that women in Japanese cinema have never had before.
Ahama saves Tsunoya with money provided by the male patron, Mr. Sawyama's assistant, Seiji Miyaguchi. In the film, Mr. Sawyama himself actually never appears, and his role is the invisible right behind Ahama. She tries to arrange for him to date Tsunade, but only Seiji arrives at the restaurant, and he apologizes to Tsunade on behalf of the boss (Seiji and Ahama can be described as a good cooperation in colluding to deceive Tsubasa, although the plot in this regard is never fully unfolded).
"Wandering/ Flowing" (1956) Kosho, Tanaka
Later in the film, Ahama declares that Saw Mountain will not provide any more funding, but she is willing to buy Tsukinoya to help Tsubasa pay off the money she borrowed from her sister. When Abang tries to persuade Achun (Ewha's original name, Tanaka Atsushiro) to leave Tsukinoya, she says that after she takes over Tsukinoya as a branch, she (Ewha) can stay and work for herself, at which point her distrust has become apparent. Ah Chun asked her what would happen to her current employees, and Ah Bang replied, "If they want to continue to do it, let them cross the river to work." The new girls aren't very (qualified)... You have to work hard to become a geisha. ”
Ah Chun rejects Ah Bang's offer and becomes a model of morality, and she has been tight-lipped about her experience. Her loyalty to Tsukinoya ensured the concept of the geisha as a practical cultural institution, despite evidence that it was economically flawed.
"Wandering/ Flowing" (1956) Japanese version of Haiba
Earlier in the film, Ah Chun came to work and soon catered to the geisha women with her motherly temperament, she was trustworthy, polite, generous, and calm and rational. When Fujiko was ill, she took care of her, and when Tsubasa and Katsuyo were taken to the police station, it was she who called Ahama to settle the dispute between them and Namie's uncle. A widow who has recently lost her son, she brings the value and merits of the ascetic simplicity of the family drama ideology to Tsukinoya and to the film itself.
Tanaka's character seems to have come straight out of Mommy, but despite the direct contrast between her humble attitude and the geisha, her role is the basis of the film, bridging the gap between the banal family life and the unusual wind and moon field.
The movie "Wanderings/Streams" (1956) Japanese version of the film promo
Katsuyo, played by Hideko Takayama (1924-2010), offers another dimension to the women's home. Although she respected her mother's profession, she was a pragmatic modern woman, and given the possible fate of the businesses she had grown up behind in the times, she understood that she would eventually have to take care of her mother. The mother tries to match her and Seiji, and they end up strolling along the Sumida River.
The shot is shot with a composition of a man and a woman that Naruse prefers, and their conversation quickly turns into questions about Katsuyo's future. "Who's going to marry me?" She asked, thinking that the geisha's daughter would not be of interest to anyone. She didn't notice Seiji and replied hesitantly, "I don't know. Katsuyo considered himself half geisha and half not. The camera again crosses the river to capture the cityscape, and she wears a tight sweater, and it is clear that she will move towards a new life. At the end of the film, she installs a sewing machine on the top floor of the house and wants to learn a craft to support herself.
Advertisement for the Japanese version of the movie "Wanderings/Ryusuke/Ryu れる" (1956).
Making these character lineups even richer are Sakura (Haruko Sugimura) and Nanako (Jasmine Okada). They provide elements of humor to the film and help create a sense of community among the women of Tsukinoya. Nanako clearly belongs to the new generation of geisha of the post-war generation, or the kind of "girls of the day" that Abang would dismiss as unworthy. Like Katsuyo, she occasionally wears trendy Western-style clothing, and her speech and mannerisms lack the elegance known in the geisha world. Both Nanako and Aika are tormented by erratic and irresponsible lovers, and they seem to be the only two women who actually go out to pick up guests in the movie.
There's a scene in the movie where they both jump home drunk and seem to be still in a frenzy. But in a subsequent scene, Dye Xiang accuses Tsubasa of cheating on them and can't help but cry, "Don't women really need men?" She later reconciles with Tsunade, and in the final scene, she bounces a shamisen for Tsunade, showing her skill and dedication to this harsh profession.
Ringe, "Wandering/ Flowing" (1956) Kosho, Yamada Isa
Haruko Sugimura's (1909-1997) performances are particularly comedic. Dye Kao is obsessed with superstitious folk songs, and her love of cheap street food helps build her character, and as an extension of the geisha house, it provides the background for the film's daily life in Shimomachi. Like Late Chrysanthemum (1954), Wanderlust was shot against the backdrop of a factory setting that miraculously escaped the war in the pre-war Shimomachi.
Some exterior shots blend the elevated subway line with the adjacent streets of about 1956, but the side streets facing geisha houses are clearly set. The geisha house blends into the city and is enhanced by the view from the second-floor windows. Through the front window where Hideko Takashi often lingers, you can see the cityscape of rooftops and chimneys that extend into the distance. Through the back window overlooking the small garden, one can catch a glimpse of the neighbor's house, where women occasionally do housework.
The film Wanderings/ Ryu れる (1956) is a Japanese video version of the cover
In the group portrait of the female characters in "Wanderings", different women choose different paths. Some will seize the opportunities offered by the postwar environment, with Ahama adopting a tacit approach to doing big business, while Katsuyo maintains her identity and autonomy. Others, such as Tsubasa, Dye Xiang, and Ah Chun, will uphold their traditional ways of dealing with the world with self-respect.
By expanding katsuyo's role and having her played by Hideko Takayama, Naruse complemented the emerging issue of the generation gap in postwar Japan for the novels of Fumi Koda (1904-1990). But under the genre of women's films, mothers and daughters remain intimate, giving the impression that the world of exchange does not necessarily lead to a complete break with the past.
Director Akio Naruse set up the scene in the studio of the film "Wanderings/Ryu" (1956).
The father of the female writer Yukita Fumi is the great writer Yukita Lu companion who wrote "The Flow of Buddha", and Yukita Fumi's father is not very fond of her, but just wants her daughter to live better regardless of good times and bad times. Koda's mother died when he was 5 years old, and his sister and brother have since died. From an early age, her father cultivated her various life skills, especially the ability to do housework, so that "even if she marries into a poor family, she will not be embarrassed." The father eventually raised his daughter to be a dignified and rigorous woman of high character, she married at the age of 24, and ten years later, she still did not get rid of the fate of divorce, took her daughter Aoki Yu back to her father's house, and began to work during the war to maintain the family.
Koda Wen only began to write after the age of 40, as a divorced widow, her words have a heavy life experience and strong strength, coupled with her talent and intelligence, delicate feelings, unique writing, unique and infectious.
Stills from the movie Wanderings/Ryusuke (1956), isuzu Yamada (left) and Moko Awashima
She writes with a strong emphasis on personal experience, and runs over when she sees a subject of interest. It is said that at the age of 47, she disappeared for several months and lived in the Yanagibashi area at the far end of the Kanda River, which has been famous for its flower town since the Edo period, and she interpreted this experience into a novel, writing her masterpiece "Wanderings", which was remade by director Naruse Mikio as a film of the same name. At the age of 50, she won the Yomiuri Literature Prize for "The Black Shirt."
The Japanese title "Ryu", which literally translates to "passing" can also refer to the flow of money between characters in the film, and money is often highlighted in close-ups, or a wad of money appears on the table, or is placed separately in the submitted envelope. The decline of geisha houses is undoubtedly an economic topic, and the film does not hide the harsh realities of running such a business. The materialism of Naruse's scene scheduling suggests that these "professionals" are ultimately not too far removed from the everyday world of the ordinary "amateur" women who make up the film's basic audience.
Cover of the Japanese brochure of the movie "Wanderings/Ryusuke"
Whether or not geisha can maintain this middle-class lifestyle, the film proposes that the absence of men is a problem — none, in the final analysis, the clearest admission, no. The truth that the woman in this geisha house cannot tell is that while the world is clearly a utopian space of community, art, or family harmony, the woman's thing is to serve men.
If Naruse succeeds in avoiding the male gaze through this traditionally seen world, he is equally clever at hiding the source of women's income. Without male patrons, the geisha house would eventually collapse because in 1956 women's access to the world of capital was still extremely restrictive.
Stills from the movie Wanderings/Ryu れる (1956), from left to right: Jasmine Okada, Hideko Takayama, Isuzu Yamada, Andayo Tanaka
If the film sequence of Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) is constantly interpreting the impact of modern society on the old oriental family and the desolation that comes with it, then the sequence of Naruse Mikio is constantly answering the proposition that in Japan during the period of social transformation, how will women take it upon themselves when they face the dilemma of losing men, and is life without men better or worse? His answer was simple, as long as women are self-reliant and self-reliant, then women without men have a beautiful sky.
In this way, the great Floating Clouds/Floating Clouds (1955) is one of the counter-testimonies, that is, the tragic story of a woman being destroyed by a man who cannot choose in the name of love, and the other works seem to have an optimistic and open-minded ending, and even calling them very measured feminist films is not indispensable.
"Ryunami" (1956) Japanese DVD Version Of The Seal
The problem of geisha is involved in "Wandering", and like Kenji Mizoguchi's (1898-1956) "Gion Sisters/Gion Sisters" (1936), the trouble in it is the decline of geisha, but a group of middle-aged geisha in this film, in the search for a collective failure of males who can be trusted, choose the tragic path of fighting for the geisha career for life, although the film ends with a lot of young geisha who make a living joins, but that kind of persistence and perseverance. After all, it is more under a spiritual level of self-improvement, hiding a deep Don Quixote-style glory, which is even the feeling of Naruse Yoshio!
Stills from the movie Wanderings/Ryu れる (1956).
The perspective of "Wandering" is the plight of a small geisha family in the eyes of the widowed maid played by Tanaka Atsuyo (1909-1977), the beginning of the film is the undisturbed river, and the end returns to the river, suggesting that the story of the film and a group of women who are wandering in the life of geisha, their life trajectory is also like a river, can not stop flowing quietly, get rid of all the coercion against the current, difficult to walk out of an invisible way forward, which is very poetic.
Stills from the movie "Wanderings/Ryusuke" (1956), in which Tanaka buys vegetables on the street
The film's lineup is about half a set of japan's top female star team in the 1950s, Tanaka Atsuyo, Yamada Isuzu (1917-2012), Hideko Takayama, Haruko Sugimura and Jasmine Okada five dazzling masters, plus Awashima Moko, Nakataku Chieko (1926-2005), Izumi Chiyo and Matsuyama Natsuko and other female stars with their own strengths, each with their own highlights, but also do not give in, it is really fun to watch, just watch them face off together to confluence, It was a rare treat. In the end, Isuzu Yamada won the 1957 Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actress, the 1957 Film Shunbun Best Actress Award, and the 1957 Mainichi Film Best Actress Award with absolute momentum.
The movie "Wanderings/Streaming", 1956, EUREKA edition DVD cover, Eureka, UK