Tragedy of Japan – Nihon no higeki (1953)

Directed by: Keisuke Kinoshita | 116 minutes | drama | Actors: Keiko Awaji, Yôko Katsuragi, Nadao Kirino, Yûko Mochizuki, Keiji Sada, Sanae Takasugi, Masami Taura, Ken Uehara

The aftermath of the Second World War left clear marks in the Japanese film world, namely in the form of censorship. The main task of the film censorship was to ban all depictions of ‘feudal’ practices. This meant that no costume films were allowed to be made and references to the samurai and their weaponry were completely out of the question. As a result, a forgotten genre was revived, the shomingeki, dramas about the common man and woman. Yasujiro Ozu (‘Late Autumn’) is the grand master as a practitioner of this genre. Women were the main focus of these films. Since the war had killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, it forced women to bear the brunt of the post-war chaos.

With ‘Tragedy of Japan’, director Teisuke Kinoshita (‘Twenty-Four Eyes’) provides an intriguing picture of post-war Japan. This is a very uncertain period in Japanese history for many families where fathers or sons have died in battle and there is hardly any money to put food on the table. The opening images show fragments of chaos. Riots, bribery scandals, suicide and political intrigue set the tone. Central to ‘Tragedy of Japan’ is the family bond between a mother and her two children. Partly due to the increasing influence of the Western world, these mutual ties are changing and rifts arise within the own family.

It’s almost painful to watch Haruko (Yûko Mochizuki) sacrifice her own life for the good of her children, but who can’t appreciate it. Her son Seiichi (Masami Tauri) wants nothing more than to be adopted by a wealthy family to fulfill his dream of owning his own hospital. Her daughter Utako (Yôko Katsuragi) has lost her faith in the male sex and even faith in the future due to unpleasant childhood experiences. This manifests itself in an affair with her English teacher, resulting in a scandal. The ending can’t help but be brutal. No matter how hard one tries to escape the disaster, this is not always possible. Kinoshita chooses an interesting structure for his film, through many and short flashbacks we see how Haruko had to do her utmost to keep her children alive. Not only was rice bought and sold on the black market, everything went through the black market in those days, but she also prostituted herself in some kind of restaurant. These so-called ‘hostess’ jobs were a means for many women in the post-war years to survive and support their children. This kind of service, which is somewhere between the catering industry and prostitution, is known in Japan as mizu-shohai, or ‘waterwork’.

The images are often beautiful, how wonderful it is to see the old Japanese masters at work. Musicians in dark alleys, dancing geishas, ​​mourning women and the landscape of Japan. Kinoshita grabs you immediately, despite the slow pace, the story continues to intrigue throughout the entire playing time, partly due to the flashbacks and intermezzos. The lack of a political statement is striking, because the ordinary citizen is a victim of powers over which he has no control. You do taste the bitterness that resounds about living conditions in many scenes, perhaps that survival should not have meant paying too much attention to politics.

The drama of the ordinary woman is portrayed painfully aptly in ‘Tragedy of Japan’ and it will therefore be difficult not to feel a little depressed after seeing the film.