Tag: era: occupation

Categories
drama, melodrama gendai-geki shomin-geki

“One Wonderful Sunday”

One Wonderful Sunday (素晴らしき日曜日, Subarashiki nichiyōbi), released in 1947, was co-written and directed by Kurosawa Akira who is famous for Seven Samurai, No Regrets for our Youth, Yojimbō and The Hidden Fortress. This film was produced before he became famous, but it still provides a chance to feel the reality of Japan at that time with some humours as he did in No Regrets for our Youth.  Its genre is basically shomin-geki (films about everyday people). However, since it focuses on a young Tokyo couple rather than a family home life, which is common in this genre, this film also has a melodramatic plot as well.

One Wonderful Sunday follows how a young labourer named Yuzo (Numazaki Isao) and his fiancée Masako (Nakakita Chieko) spend a Sunday in the ruins of Tokyo a year after World War II. They want to have a wonderful date, as in the title of the film, but they are continuously frustrated by obstacles around them. The film starts with a scene where Yuzo tries to pick a cigarette off the street. Yuzo, after serving in the military during the war, is having financial troubles with living, so is barely able to pay for a room with his roommate. Masako lives with her family and isn’t able to be financially independent as well. They are attempting to enjoy the only day they can meet with 35 yen, all the money they have. They search for an affordable room to live together, but even a room without any light and heater isn’t available for them. But with Masako’s efforts, they continue their date, wandering through an urban landscape with a war orphan, zoo and cabaret.

Kurosawa Akira shows explicitly how ordinary people were living in the postwar period through the film. From beginning to end, as I mentioned earlier, they are suffering from financial problems. However, they are not the only ones who have financial problems during the postwar period. As Masako mentioned, lots of people are in the same situation, for example the boy in the field, who lost his parents during the war, and the man in the cabaret, who eats leftover food in the cabaret. However, there are also some affluent people as well. When the couple visits the room, Yuzo hesitates to go in because of the high price. Inside the house, they meet another couple but they don’t consider the price expensive at all. Also in the cabaret, there are some colourful and fancy people. By showing them with the couple, it represents the pain of unbridgeable gap between the rich and poor.

The film tells the audience, living in painful period, not to lose the hope for future, especially in the amphitheatre scene. Interestingly Kurosawa Akira attempts to give us this message face to face, without using any special techniques. After Yuzo and Masako fail to buy B-rank tickets for a live performance of Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony”, Masako tries to lift Yuzo and to give his dream and hope back by conducting an imaginary orchestra; the imaginary orchestra is Yuzo’s first step. They are standing in the amphitheatre with strong winds and no light; it’s like an image of war. At the moment Yuzo tries to give up on the performance because of the wind, Masako asks for help from the audience. Masako turns to the camera with earnest eyes and ask the audience to cheer him up. The camera takes a close-up of her face so the audience feels that she speaks to us directly. It means that the audience should not give up our dreams for tomorrow by clapping ourselves. The use of crane shots and light strengthen the mood of hope as well. It also matches perfectly Yuzo’s “Unfinished Symphony”.

Although I pay attention to desires hidden in the film, One Wonderful Sunday has some humour and melodramatic scenes as well. The film starts from the beginning of the date and goess to the end of their date, so I felt very interested, following someone else’s date. Although there many problems still remain at the end, I was happy to feel there was an optimistic future for the couple. But you will be the one who judge whether they really have a wonderful Sunday or not.

Categories
drama, melodrama gendai-geki post-war shomin-geki

The Shattered Women In a Torn-down City: A Film Review of Mizoguchi Kenji’s “Women of the Night”

Mizoguchi Kenji, as one of the most well-known Japanese directors in the 20th century, is famous for his intense focus on lower-class women in his films. Women of the Night (Yoru No Onnatachi, 1948) is collected as one of Mizoguchi’s “Four Masterpieces of the Fallen Women”, in which Street of Shame, Sisters of the Gion, and Osaka Elegy are also included. The leading “fallen woman” in this film is played by Tanaka Kinuyo, a Best Actress Award winner at the Berlin International Film Festival. She played leading roles in many of Mizoguchi’s films, and is considered one of the most influential actresses in Japan in the 20th century.  With a focus on postwar traumas, the story of Women of the Night is a literary adaptation based on a novel written by Hisaita Eijirô, and was set in postwar Osaka under occupation by the American government.

The opening scene starts with a desperate-looking woman, Owada Fusako, walking across a long street to sell her summer clothes at a pawnshop. Her desperation mainly comes from her missing husband and the heavy economic burden of her husband’s family. Later, she is informed that her husband was found dead in the war. The death of her child later on furthers her misfortune. However, on the other day, Fusako seems indifferent about her misfortune when she walks down the street with her sister-in-law Kumiko and surprisingly encounters her sister, Natsuko. Fusako proudly tells her sister that she has already got rid of the family burden by working as a secretary for her husband’s previous boss Kuriyama, while Natsuko announces her job as a dance hostess. Kumiko shows her admiration for both while listening to their conversations. The story reaches a turning point when Fusako finds out that her sister Natsuko is having an affair with her beloved boss Kuriyama. Stunned and desperate again, Fusako leaves their shared apartment and disappears. At the same time, the young sister-in-law Kumiko suddenly decides to leave home and start a new life on her own. Unfortunately, she is used and raped by a gangster she encountered on the street. With all her money and clothes taken away, she then has no choice but to follow a bad girl gang to become a prostitute. A small climax of the story arises when Natsuko gets sent to a hospital by mistake when she tries to look for Fusako in the prostitution area. She then meets Fusako in the hospital, who looks completely different in her dressings and manners as a skilled prostitute. After Fusako manages to escape from the hospital, she continues her life as a prostitute, who wishes to spread sexual transmitted diseases to men, until she meets Kumiko in an unexpected circumstance. Their reunion then pushes the story to its final climax.

The camerawork in Women of the Night adopts Mizoguchi’s favourite long shots, in which the camera is fixed at a certain point to follow the movement of characters and to exhibit a pan of actions. With this style of camerawork, the stage settings in which the characters interact are clearly revealed to the audience. In this particular film, an actual postwar ruin is starkly exposed. At the beginning of the film, when Fusako walks down a long street from the pawnshop to her house, the city’s scars left by the war become immediately visible as she passes by piles of shattered bricks and destroyed houses. It is significant to notice that two of the most violent scenes in the film are also shot in the observable postwar shambles. One of these scenes establishes right after Kumiko gets raped and dumped by the gangster. The violence starts as a gang of bad girls brutally tear off Kumiko’s clothes in front a field filled with shattered slabs and bricks. The other violent scene occurs towards the end of the film, when Fusako receives whips and kicks from her prostitute gang just because she wants to quit her job as a prostitute. This scene takes place in front of a torn-down church, and Fusako gets hit among piles of broken slabs as well. These parallel violent scenes taken place in war ruins resemble war scenes, as if the women’s wars start right after the end of men’s wars. The women’s wars reflect a reality that society remains unrest even if the wars are over. The broken hearts of women and shattered constructions are just another war-like disaster that further depresses the city.

Women of the Night also brings forth a struggle between traditional values and the new values of women. Influenced by the western ideas of individuality and independence brought by the occupation government, the women in this film seem to be less subordinate to men than the women in Mizoguchi’s previous films. Without her husband’s support, Fusako moves out to a single apartment and works as a secretary to support her life. She also believes in romantic true love between herself and Kuriyama, instead of adhering to arranged marriage. The single lady Natsuko, on the other hand, works as a dance hostess. The young Kumiko’s admiration for the sisters clearly reveals women’s appreciation and yearnings for the new lifestyles adopted by independent working women. The yearning for a more westernized, individualistic lifestyle is also what pushes Kumiko to leave home. However, the new appreciated value of women doesn’t seem to change their subordinate social status, as their income, still, is fully dependent on the men around them. Both Fusako and Natsuko lose hope and support after they leave Kuriyama, and Kumiko’s misery begins right after she gives up the support from her family. Even the prostitutes’ survivals are entirely dependent on their male customers, or the supporting charity organizations run by men. Trapped between ideals and a discouraging reality, women like Fusako turn their yearnings for independence into revenge towards men by becoming prostitutes and spreading diseases to men.

Mizoguchi’s long shots, together with the bleak atmosphere pervaded throughout the film, made me feel as if I was actually inside the shattered city. The violent actions between the female characters made me strongly feel for the physical and psychological hardship that the women in the film have to go through. The struggles amongst the women as well as the struggle between women and men in the film remain unresolved even towards the end of the film. The everlasting struggles indicate endless tragedies of the lower-class women during the postwar era. The film is particularly worth seeing during a relatively peaceful era, as it makes us question about wars again. After the war, not only the women of the night have fallen, but also the entire city has fallen. The kinds of destructions and distortions that wars can bring are immeasurable.

Categories
drama, melodrama gendai-geki shomin-geki

“Late Spring”

Ozu Yasujirō’s Late Spring (Banshun, 1949) is a drama that revolves around the everyday lives of the working-class families (shomin-geki) during postwar Japan and its American Occupation.  The main characters of this film, Somiya Noriko (Hara Setsuko) and Somiya Shukichi (Ryū Chishū) are played by recurring actors who are often seen in other films by Ozu.  Hara Setsuko plays the daughter who wishes to take care of her father, Somiya Shukichi, and be by his side as long as she can.

In this black and white film, Noriko is an unmarried 27-year-old daughter who willingly continues to live and take care of her widowed father, Shukichi.  All is fine with their living arrangement until Noriko’s aunt Masa draws attention to the reality that Noriko should be married.  Masa discusses her concern with Shukichi and suggests that his assistant, Hattori, would be a good candidate for a husband.  Shukichi approaches Noriko with this subject, which results in hysterical laughter revealing that Hattori is engaged.  Later on, Noriko visits Kyoto and meets up with an old widowed family friend, Onodera.  Onodera’s recent remarriage has been brought up to Noriko in which she reveals her impression of remarriage as “filthy” and “distasteful”.  Although Noriko is reluctant at the thought of marriage, Masa continues to search for matchmaking possibilities and pairs her with a gentleman who resembles Gary Cooper.  However, Noriko objects to the match because it would lead her to abandon her father.  It is then brought up that her father may remarry and she should not worry.  Noriko is jealous and upset after receiving news that her father would consider remarriage but after an encounter with the lady who he might possibly remarry, she gradually accepts the arrangement and the reality of a life without her father.

Ozu’s distinctive manner of filmmaking emphasizes character development more than the narrative itself, and in this case, in regards to marriage as a theme and how it changes the characters.  The character developments are in a sense paralleled with traditional roles and modern/western times to the Japanese culture.  In the early part of the film, Noriko and Shukichi are both comfortable and ecstatic with regards to their everyday lives.  Noriko is consistently seen with a smile, being playful, innocent and independent.  The subject of marriage is constantly brought up and is pushed upon Noriko.  Marriage seems to be the recurring topic with almost every character she interacts with: Shukichi, Masa, Aya, Onodera, and Hattori. Although Noriko still maintains her smile, it can slowly be seen as less genuine as the idea of marriage is pushed on her. One of the first scenes that introduces the theme of marriage and remarriage is at a restaurant where Noriko and Onodera were eating and chatting.  A realization comes upon Shukichi that he should not be selfish and keep his daughter by his aside attending to his daily activities, and rather have her start her own family.  An evident transition between the father-daughter relationship begins to transform from a more modern, playful attitude towards the traditional patriarchal position.  This transition is clearly seen after they leave the Noh performance because the two characters walk down a long road but not in linking arms or side by side but rather far apart; she walks along the grass while he continues on the concrete road.  Another scene that is significant to Noriko and Shukichi’s relationship is their last trip to Kyoto together.  This last trip resembles their final recognition of the closeness of their relationship.  Here one can see the playful mockery and physically teasing relationship slip through more into a traditional role.  Noriko confesses her doubts regarding her marriage and would want to remain with Shukichi even if he were to remarry.  Shukichi lectures her by saying such things such as this is the way of life and you must move along.  Although Shukichi continues to speak, his speech in a way acts like a barrier to avoid his real emotions.  On the other hand, Noriko listens with her head down like she is withdrawing into herself and shielding herself from his words.  Both characters in this scene mask their true feelings.  The audience feels the sense of Noriko’s resistance to conformity and her filial obligations but yet empathizes with the sacrifice Shukichi has made for the better good and future of Noriko.

The camerawork observed in this film are typical styles seen in the works by Ozu. (For example, the tatami shot, where the scene is obstructed, is one of the many techniques seen) and framing a shot within a border or door frame, to name just a few.  Ozu is recognized for his use of tatami shots – scenes filmed at a lower than eye-level height designed to capture characters when they are seated on the tatami.  By centralizing the focus on inanimate objects in the foreground, Ozu attempts to distance the audience from the characters of the film, creating a sense of space and separation.  For example, Noriko was making her way home after declining Hattori’s offer to go to an opera show and the audience is presented with a tree stump as she walks into the scene and then further and further away.  .  Another very common custom by Ozu is what he chooses to frame in a shot. For example, in many shots, his characters are surrounded by door frames or anything that could constitute as a border; it portrays a theatrical setting with different layers while having the spotlight on the character. Another significant cinematographic style that Ozu employs in this film is the fact that he continually portrays characters passing through entrances or exits, implying their attendance at a certain locale or event. Thus, rather than showing the audience what the characters are doing at the destination, Ozu merely implies their attendance and moves on directly to the next shot. This simplification of the narrative makes transitions from scene-to-scene seem seamless and effortless to the audience. Such is the brilliance of Ozu and his camera work

Ozu’s films are thought as being reflections on the changing notions of changing roles and identities, and its perception of place within Japanese society as children, husbands, wives and how they define themselves. These characters in Late Spring were portrayed as his principle work in terms of exploring roles of men and women during this time.  Ozu Yasujirō’s films are continuous projects from his understanding of the complexity of everyday life and this one is no different.

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drama, melodrama gendai-geki literary adaptations shomin-geki

Prostitutes’ plight: the social realism of Mizoguchi’s “Women of the Night”, 1948

Mizoguchi Kenji’s Yoru no onnatachi or Women of the Night (1948) is based on a contemporary novel by Hisaita Eikiro titled ‘Joseimatsuri’ depicting the lives of everyday women whose lives and family structures had been drastically transformed by the war. The shomin-geki documents the descent of three women into the violent world of prostitution after World War II in the seedy Shinsekai district of Osaka. When the two long-lost sisters Fusako (Tanaka Kinuyo) and Natsuko (Takasugi Sanae) meet again in the aftermath of the war, they soon discover that they both have lost everything and that they have no one but themselves to rely on for financial support.  Fusako’s young and impressionable sister-in-law Kumiko (Tsunoda Tomie) also moves to Osaka in search of freedom and happiness only to find herself alienated, dehumanized and forcibly initiated into prostitution by the tough-skinned women that rule Abeno. All three women find themselves in increasingly dire economic and moral circumstances, which both toughen their demeanoru towards the world and generate a rift between them. Mizoguchi employs his signature long takes with elements of neorealism by juxtaposing interior studio scenes with shots of urban environments to frame scenes that highlight the moral degradation of prostitutes and the bleak reality that they face.
In the aftermath of the war, three women whose lives are interconnected have lost everything. Fusako anxiously waits for the arrival of her husband in exile in Korea, while taking care of her ailing child who has tuberculosis. Struggling to make ends meet, Fusako sells her possessions to be able to feed her son. Fusako and her sister-in-law Kumiko later find out that their “last hope” for survival is gone forever. With limited opportunities in their village, both women leave for Osaka where Fusako re-unites with her sister by happenstance. Natsuko solemnly informs Fusako that their parents have died and that she had been raped during the occupation. Having had to take care of herself on her own, Natsuko took up a job as a dancer hostess at the Hollywood Club. The news distresses Fusako who had wished for a better fate for her younger sister. In an attempt to be financially independent, Fusako approaches Kuriyama who offers her a job as his personal secretary. As Fusako begins to develop feelings for Kuriyama, she comes home to see Kuriyama leaving Natsuko’s side. Furthermore, it is revealed that Kuriyama is involved in a shady narcotics business. Angered at both her sister and Kuriyama’s betrayal, the embittered Fusako considers prostitution. She soon disappears into the sordid streets of Abeno. Natsuko desperately goes in search for Fusako in Abeno when the police randomly capture her and a group of other prostitutes and send them off to a hospital. At the facility, the two sisters re-unite again while the resentful Fusako broods. The possibility of solidarity or support between the sisters is severed by their love triangle over Kuriyama. But when Natsuko later learns that she has contracted syphilis, she grows more and more disillusioned by her deepening gloomy destiny. Furthermore, when both sisters find out that Natsuko is pregnant with Kuriyama’s child, they realize the survival of the child could possibly dramatically change the course of their lives.

Women of the Night interrogates the moral repercussions of a society that tolerates prostitution, which is seen to dehumanize women and thus legitimize their treatment as animals. Mizoguchi went on location to film Women of the Night in an attempt to capture the reality of the supposed moral degeneration and violence that shape the lives of prostitutes and other socially and economically marginalized peoples. His quest for a greater form of social realism or shomin-geki led him to the impoverished prostitute quarters of the Shinsekai district in Osaka. In the immediate postwar period, the social problem of prostitution seemed to have proliferated and become exacerbated in Shinsekai, where post-war reconstruction efforts had been largely ignored. As a result, Shinsekai had turned into a destitute squalor rampant with syphilis, gambling, prostitution and other deviant activity. Some film critics have cited Mizoguchi’s influence in the period from the styles of Italian neo-realist filmmakers who also took an interest in the plight of the lower classes after WWII. In a similar fashion, Mizoguchi employed visual techniques that relied on the physical inclusion of the dirty urban landscape to frame the emotional experiences of desperation that plagued Fusako, Natsuko and Kumiko. When Kumiko runs away to Osaka, she is almost promptly whisked away by a charismatic student, Kiyoshi, who takes her to the unfamiliar Shinsekai. Kumiko unknowingly enters a brothel in the outskirts of town where Kiyoshi deceptively steals her money, forces her to drink beer, rapes her and then leaves her to her own devices when a group of prostitutes corner and push her down in the streets and forcibly remove all of her clothing. In this gripping scene, the rancorous group of prostitutes violently defiles Kumiko and gives her an ultimatum: to join them or leave Shinsekai. At this point, the vulnerable Kumiko, stripped of all of her money and clothing, has become utterly dehumanized.  The young girl, who had initially left her broken home to find freedom and happiness in Osaka is literally pushed into the dirt of a road that resembles a desolate wasteland. The circumstances that frame Kumiko’s fall are fuelled by the raw reality of a world gone awry, virtually devoid of any human sympathy. The importance of Mizoguchi’s location shoots at Shinsekai and Abeno is marked by the starkness of the wasteland, by the calloused women who feed on the innocent in order to get by.

Throughout his cinematic career, Mizoguchi continually revisited themes of women’s moral dilemmas and their fall into disillusionment and self-imposed defilement (Sisters of the Gion, 1936; Life of Oharu, 1952; Streets of Shame, 1956). It seems that Mizoguchi reuses similar tropes of the growing rift between women or sisters (in the case of Sisters of the Gion and Women of the Night), which hinders the possibility of the women overcoming the patriarchal authority that continually limits their possibility for emancipation. Fusako and Natsuko bicker over Kuriyama, who only continues to disrespect both women until he disposes of the both of them singlehandedly. Mizoguchi’s heavy-handed moral concerns obscure the complicated dynamics of a patriarchal society that secures a stronghold on the course of women’s lives and livelihoods. Rather than allowing Fusako and Kumiko an active voice, they seem to wallow in self-pity and placidly receive unquestioned paternal guidance from male figures of authority. One of the men at the facility condescendingly asks Fusako what is left of her but a “bruised and defiled body”. Fusako promptly leaves without a word but she seems to have internalized his judgment, causing her sense of self-worth to plummet even further.  Fusako initially denies that prostitution could be a plausible prospect to maintain her livelihood, but as her financial situation worsened, she realizes she could no longer rely on any man for financial security. At the same time, her services rely on the continual abuse from men which only serves to fuel her rancor. This dilemma provokes Fusako’s further demise into prostitution where she finds the opportunity to channel her bitterness through corrupting men by infecting them with disease. The internal fighting between the women severs any possibility of solidarity for the women. They are left utterly fragmented with limited resources, and increasingly disenfranchised. In the final scene where the women continue to fight amongst themselves, Fusako and Kumiko endure the beating by the other prostitutes while the camera pans out to an iconic image of the Madonna and Child on the stained glass window. The presence of a church seems disjointed amongst the fighting and chaos of the street. Mizoguchi uses the Catholic reference to focus on the importance of the child, which represents innocence and the possibility for the prostitutes’ reform through moral revitalization and re-purification.

Mizoguchi’s Women of the Night is a disturbing look into the brute conditions that frame the lives of marginalized women whose status in the lowest rung of society is exacerbated by post-war economic conditions.  The film includes disturbing scenes of rape and sexual violence. Through such shocking scenes, Mizoguchi forces the viewer to face difficult scenes of an otherwise invisible populace in order to restore a kind of humanistic empathy for their suffering. In effect, Mizoguchi is able to capture the rawness of sorrow through an in-depth inquiry into the private lives of his characters.

Categories
drama, melodrama gendai-geki

Women of the Night

Mizoguchi Kenji, one of the great directors active during the golden age of Japanese cinema, directed a film entitled “Women of the night (Yoru no onnatachi).” This movie was released in 1948 which was right after World War II. The two main characters, Fusako and Natsuko, were played by Kinuyo Tanaka and Sanae Takasuki. Kinuyo Tanaka had worked frequently with Mizoguchi as a female lead actor in his films. Furthermore, she was the second female director in Japanese cinema history. The genre of this film is drama, or gendai-geki. It has a certain love line amongst the characters consisting of a love triangle between Fusako, Mr. Kuriyama, and Natsuko. The background setting of this film involves people suffering because of war and postwar effects that come later in the story. It mirrors the same setting of the period when the movie was filmed.

The first scene of the movie starts by showing Fusako selling her clothes to a dry goods merchant to earn money for her child’s hospital fees and food. She has lost her husband after he left for the war and her baby suffers from tuberculosis. Because of this, she has to look after her child and her husband’s family. The merchant offers Fusako a chance to become a prostitute but Fusako is shocked by the notion and immediately rejects the merchant’s offer. After hearing about her husband’s death and the death of her baby, she asks for help from Mr. Kuriyama, the owner of her husband’s company. Mr. Kuriyama accepts her as his financial assistant and they become lovers.

Fusako runs into Natsuko, her sister, estranged due to the disruption of war. Natsuko, a dancing hostess, asks if she can live with Fusako and Fusako accepts the offer. Fusako accidentally discovers that her sister and Mr. Kuriyama had slept together. Natsuko tells her sister that she was raped during the war and asks for understanding. However, Fusako runs away and becomes a prostitute through a deep antipathy toward men. Meanwhile, Kumiko, who is the sister-in-law of Fusako, runs away from her home and gets raped by a friendly boy who offers to show her his room. The boy takes her money and Kumiko, who now has no other options, also becomes a prostitute. Natsuko hears the news that her sister has become a prostitute and goes out to find her. The two sisters come across in a hospital which is a place where police routinely send arrested prostitutes to get examined for diseases. Natsuko turns out to pregnant and also has syphilis. After seeing Fusako, she starts to think about becoming a straight woman and having a job at the women’s care center.

There are two interesting points throughout this film. The transformation in Fusako’s customs compared to her change of thought and behaviour. Another point is the innovation of the women’s behaviour. When Fusako’s subjectivity is with the traditional notion of Japanese women sacrificing everything for one’s husband and child, her clothes are neat and simple. Afterward, when Fusako became a financial assistant, she wears a formal Kimono. Comparing these two styles of clothing, Fusako first wears clothes that emphasize her wrists and mainly show her collarbone. It is a fitting juxtaposition for expressing Fusako’s purity and cleanliness by covering her body with clothing. Conversely, Fusako later reveals her body as one which is losing chastity and subjectivity. Natsuko, on the other hand, wears more formal clothes as she becomes the lover of Mr. Kuriyama. Kumiko also unbuttons more of her shirt around the neck after she becomes a prostitute.

Fusako, also exhibits a change in her behaviour. She bends herself around a lot when she has the role of a mother. She cares about what others think of her and tries to be invisible. In the scene when her husband and her baby die, she panics and asks for help. It looks as though Fusako cannot do anything by herself other than be quiet and just sacrifice herself for her family. She also bends herself when she works as an assistant but the difference there is that she has confidence in her attitude. She knows how to do her job and has an opinion. Even when she knows that the cops are coming to search the company, she handles the situation boldly by taking the compromising material to her home. However, she does not bend at all when she becomes a prostitute. It seems as she does not feel any shame about herself and has given up her proper life as a human being. She laughs and acts in a crude manner.

There is indeed some excessive violence in this film (e.g., the beating of the girls) but there is a different meaning inside of it. Also, although genre of this film is that of drama the story does not solely concentrate on the love story between the main characters. This film not only shows the change of one woman’s life but also the looming female movement in Japanese culture.

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