A Japanese Tragedy aka Tragedy of Japan (Nihon no higeki)
Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita
Written by Keisuke Kinoshita
1953/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
First viewing/Hulu
[box] “Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.” ― William Shakespeare, Macbeth[/box]
I don’t like films that constantly flip flop between flashback and present day. This is one.
The story frequently shifts from a time immediately after Japan’s defeat in WWII to present day 1953. Haruko is a widow who worked hard at menial jobs to support her two children and keep them in school amid post-war hardship. It seems they spent most of their time living with their uncle’s family, who treated them harshly.
Currently, Haruko is working as a hostess in some sort of drinking establishment or geisha house. She drinks too much and is fairly volatile. Her grown son, whom she continues to support through medical school, wants her to permit an elderly couple to adopt him so he can inherit the husband’s clinic. Naturally, this is very hurtful to Haruko. The daughter is profoundly ashamed of her.
We follow these unhappy people as they run into outsiders who are just as unhappy and self-centered as themselves.
Due to the film’s structure, I never quite figured out exactly what Hakuro had done to make the children resent her so. The flashbacks were too short to really add much information. Every person in the film is out for themselves. Besides the flashbacks, the film contains a fair bit of historical footage. Through all this, the filmmakers’ condemnation of post-war Japanese society comes through clearly. I think we were supposed to identify with the mother but she was so flawed I couldn’t completely sympathize. I wouldn’t have wished the film’s ending on her though.
