▲In early January 2023, the "Women's World of Kenji Mizoguchi and Tanaka Silkyro" themed film festival was held at the Beijing Broadway Film Center. Figure/DLL
Mizoguchi cared deeply for women, and Tanaka made women's films that are still not outdated
This article was first published in Southern People Weekly
"The Women's World of Kenji Mizoguchi and Takashiro Tanaka" is the first heavyweight film festival in Japan in fiscal 2023. Outside Hall 1 of the Beijing Broadway Film Center, three large posters stand with exquisite composition and painting, and the heroines in the works of Kenji Mizoguchi and Tanaka Takashiro are cleverly embedded in the paintings: the beautiful girl ghost is from "Rain Moon Story", and the woman on the paper boat is the wife who is oppressed and runs away from "Konmatsu Monogatari"; The figure in the tub is the poet with breast cancer after divorce in "Forever Woman"...
The film festival list is undoubtedly luxurious, "Nishitsuru Generation Girl", "Rain Moon Story" and "Doctor Pepper" all include: from 1952 to 1954, Mizoguchi's three films won awards at the Venice Film Festival in a row, and he strode to the world with Japanese films.
Director Jia Zhangke sat two rows behind me and came as a fan to watch "Xihe Generation Girl". He said that when filming "The Good People of the Three Gorges" in 2006, he saw the continuous landscape of the Three Gorges, and he unconsciously learned the horizontal lens of director Mizoguchi to show the oriental landscape and landscape people. "Mizoguchi's director's large number of horizontal shots break the limitations of the frame, and the continuous movement forms a scroll-like picture, which is connected with traditional oriental painting, meaningful, poignant, tactful, and full of lust." Jia Zhangke also said that when he was a student at film school, his film history teacher brought a videotape, and he watched "Rainy Moon Story" for the first time and was very fascinated.
Early into the end of "Rain Moon Story", one of the top 100 masterpieces in the film history of "Sight and Hearing", a long shot shot of the world of virtual and real life: the pottery Genjuro ended his affair with a ghost and returned to his dilapidated home after the war with regret, there was no one at home, he walked around and ran out the door; The camera pans back to the house, at this time, Miyagi, the wife played by Tanaka Suyo, is making a fire and telling her husband that the rice is ready. Film scholar Tadao Sato commented in "Kenji Mizoguchi's World: Making Movies Only for Women" that in this scene, Tanaka Suyo's acting skills are superb and can be called superb: "The wife who has become an undead is not at all like the undead, and she welcomes the return of her husband with affection as usual." ”
▲ "Xihe Generation Girl" stills
At the end of "Nishizuru Generation Girl", Aharu, also played by Tanaka Ayayo, suffered half a life of humiliation, and learned that his own son became the new lord, thinking that he could finally live a stable life; But he was angrily accused of selling spring to make a living, and he was shameless, and could only glance at his son from a distance before being expelled.
Then comes a wonderful long shot, the new lord walks out of the room and through the veranda, and Achun, who wants to see her son closer under the siege of the attendants, breaks through all the encirclement, runs through the long veranda, and disappears into the camera. The camera stopped moving, and after a while, Ah Chun was caught by the attendant and returned to the camera in silence.
The philosopher Deleuze pointed out that Mizoguchi's moving lens is like a vector line, tracking not the landscape, but the trajectory of the character and the situation of the character.
What is even more rare is that Mizoguchi has a deep concern for women, always telling about the suffering and sacrifice of women under the oppression of patriarchal structures. This has to do with his early experiences. Mizoguchi's father's business failed, and his sister became a geisha in order to support the family. He fell in love with a prostitute when he was young, and his first wife was a geisha. Film history critics believe that Mizoguchi critically projected his family relationships into his film works, making his works full of realism.
In "Doctor Pepper", Tamaki, a mother played by Tanaka Silkyo, was sold to Sado Island as a prostitute on the way to find her husband and was forced to separate from her children; Kabuki actor Kikunosuke in "Broken Kiku Monogatari", the pursuit of self-realization is inseparable from the unfailing spiritual support of the maid Ade; In "The Tale of the Rain Moon", Fujibei is stunned to become a great samurai, abandons his wife to go to the military camp in the war, accidentally picks up the general's first rank and makes battle merits and enters the green building with his attendants, and turns his face, the prostitute with heavy makeup is his wife, which is very ironic.
In the film, Mizoguchi really shoots women with level and respect. The wife in "Konmatsu Monogatari" was misunderstood for adultery with Mobei, who repeatedly helped her, left her unequal marriage and the maiden family that she constantly demanded from her, and planned to commit suicide by throwing herself into the lake to save her reputation, but after Mobei confided in her long-hidden love, his wife was aroused to live: "Because of your words, I can't die." I don't want to die, I want to live. Mizoguchi once said that the entire movie was made for this line. During the Heian period, adultery between men and women was punishable by strangulation. But his wife gladly accepted her fate, and after being captured by the government, she and Shigebei were tied back to back to a horse, and the execution procession walked through the streets, and the wife's former servants came out to look at them. One maid said I had never seen her so happy.
In "The Generation of Daughters of the West Crane", the court maid Achun is punished for free love with a samurai, and her life takes a sharp turn. Mizoguchi removes the background of the heroine's natural lewd pleasure in Ihara Nishitsuru's original work, and instead asks the root cause of the tragic fate of women: Aharu was chosen by the lord as a concubine, completed the fertility task, and was immediately driven back to his hometown in the name of endangering the lord's health. Her father, who borrowed money to do business, sold her to a brothel for working capital. That shot shows Kenji Mizoguchi's attitude: the close-up is a father who does not want to accept reality, curls up under the covers after announcing his command to his daughter; The vista is Ah Chun, with a straight back, staring at his father.
At the end of the film, A Chun is old and decaying, selling prostitutes on the street, smiling miserably, full of divinity in the wind and dust.
In the past two years, because of the new crown epidemic, the number of film festivals that can be seen in Beijing has plummeted. And such a specific theme and exquisite layout are even rarer. Born in 1909, she is one of the greatest actresses in Japanese film history, and her collaboration with Kenji Mizoguchi spanned 17 years. She became obsessed with movies at the age of 12, decided to become an actress when the Japanese film industry was just starting out and was not recognized by society, and joined Shochiku at the age of 15. The war ruined the golden period of her career, but after the war she became a good actress and visited the United States for three months as a goodwill envoy between Japan and the United States, and her eyes were broadened, and she wanted to direct films herself (she later said, "To be an actor is to express a person alone through your own body.") When I want to express my daily thoughts in all aspects, I can only do it by being a director. ”）。 After getting off the plane back to Japan, Tanaka Silkyo wore a dress and sunglasses and kissed the camera, but the Japanese people, who swallowed the bitter fruits of the defeat, transferred their humiliation and resentment to her and boycotted her for a while.
But she became the second female director in Japanese film history, directing a total of six films. Unfortunately, she has a high reputation as an actress, but the director's work is difficult to find online, and it was only restored by the foundation in 2021 and screened at international film festivals. This film festival screened three of her directorial works. Among them, the director's debut "Love Text" was screened for the first time in China. Curator Yang Yang introduced that the copyright fee of this film is too expensive, even if all the tickets are sold out, the cost cannot be recovered.
The plot of "Love Text" is easily reminiscent of Tanaka's past when Ayayo Tanaka was resisted by ideology: the male and female protagonists of childhood sweethearts, Reiji and Michiko, were separated in the war, and the post-war regurgitated Reikichi took a job to write love letters for the "Panpan" girl who had been a lover for American soldiers during the war to ask for living expenses, and he was full of sympathy for this group; Until one day he met Michiko, unable to forgive his lover, who also lived as a foreigner for a living, blaming Michiko for all his frustrations and dissatisfaction. Michiko tortures the soul of the inner and faces the interrogation of Reikichi externally, but does not lose his dignity. The film captures the ambivalence of individuals who are struggling to move forward after the war and is shortlisted for the main competition unit in Cannes.
The biggest surprise for me was "Forever Woman", a women's movie that is still not outdated. The heroine Fumiko married on a blind date under the pressure of her mother, gave birth to a pair of children, and was busy with housework every day, leaving only the hobby of writing tanks. In the only way to express herself, she writes about her struggles, pains, and being questioned and contrived by those around her. After her husband cheated on her, she painfully chose to divorce and was soon diagnosed with breast cancer. After surgery, both of her breasts were removed. After constant loss, she broke through her identity anxiety, bravely confessed to her friends that she had liked each other's husbands, and enjoyed the pleasures of lust with a reporter.
After Fumiko's death, he left his children a book of short songs with the inscription: "The mother has no inheritance, so give it to the child, and the child Save." ”