松竹株式会社 – Sat In Your Lap

One Last Job

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Dragnet Girl (非常線の女, Hijōsen no Onna) was Yasujiro Ozu’s final foray into the gangster genre, and appropriately so, as the picture is deeply embellished in not only the aesthetics of the genre, but also the tropes. Dragnet Girl captures the pulpy world of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, but unlike the American pictures of the time, it is a silent film. It is this, alongside the additional combination of German expressionism and traditional Japanese iconography, which creates a unique hybrid of a film. By this point in his filmography, those famous Ozu still frames are well in use, and needless to say, the man knows how to compose a shot that sticks in your mind long after watching (with Dragnet Girl in particular being very keen on layered, deep focus shots looking through glass).

One of the film’s major recurring motifs is the striking image of several dangling, gymnastic rings with the silhouette of a boxer adorning the wall and containing the words (in English), “The manly art of self-defence”. This is one of several examples in the film showcasing the Japanese use of English as a cosmopolitan signifier. Later in the film, a pool hall is showcased, in which the rules of the game are printed on the wall in large English text (as well as the early Ozu motif of prominently featuring Hollywood movie posters in the background). In a more subtle use of English as a cosmopolitan signifier, the office featured in the film has an array of typists working on typewriters; however, there were no Japanese-language typewriters akin to the standard QWERTY Western typewriter in 1933 (rather, Japanese typewriters of the time were large, cumbersome machines), suggesting that this company provides translation services.

Correspondingly, although Dragnet Girl is a Japanese gangster film, the traditional Japanese gangster of the Yakuza are nowhere to be seen. Rather, Dragnet Girl focuses on a subculture known as Mobo (Modern Boy) and Moga (Modern Girl), a youth movement which rejected traditional societal values and embraced Westernised clothing, jazz music, and a liberated, urban lifestyle (prevalent during Japan’s Taishō and early Shōwa periods). Likewise, the plot of Dragnet Girl is built on tropes commonly seen in various Hollywood gangster pictures. Kazuko (Sumiko Mizukubo) becomes concerned that her younger brother Hiroshi (Kōji Mitsui) is skipping school and hanging out with local gangsters. To combat this, she approaches head gangster Joji (Joji Oka), whom her brother respects and admires, to tell her brother to straighten himself out. Joji obliges and tells the youngling to leave the world behind (Hiroshi himself is very unconvincing as a gangster, coming off as a larper). This recognition that the gangster ultimately knows what they do isn’t right and will stop others (the innocent and naïve in particular) from entering the world is seen in later Hollywood films, such as Kid Galahad or the ending of Angels With Dirty Faces.

Sumiko Mizukubo perfectly sells the role of Kazuko with her homely, down-to-earth, innocent demeanour. With no parents present or even mentioned, Kazuko is a mother figure to her brother and a youth who has been forced into the role of a hardworking adult. On the opposite end of the spectrum, however, is Joji’s girlfriend and self-described delinquent Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka). Tokiko is on an equal footing with her male gangster peers and is treated like one of the guys. Likewise, in stark contrast to the innocence of Mizukubo, Tanaka is a true, glamorous movie star in the Hollywood form (and boasting an impressive wardrobe in this picture).

Both Joji and Tokiko, however, find themselves questioning their paths in life following their encounters with Kazuko. They both fall for her charm, with Tokiko stating, “I’ve started to feel more domesticated since I met her”, and quickly develops a desire to start knitting socks for Joji. This trope itself, of the otherwise cold and calculating gangster revealing a softer, more affectionate side due to the influence of an innocent, girl-next-door, is seen in later films such as The Roaring Twenties and High Sierra (and Ozu’s earlier gangster picture Walk Cheerfully). Joji and Tokiko decide they will go straight and begin their trad lifestyle, but not before engaging in that other timeless trope of doing “one last job”. If you know anything about gangster pictures, the “one last job” never quite goes to plan.

In many subtle ways, Dragnet Girl presents the gangster lifestyle as a cowardly way of life. Joji, a former boxer, is pursued by a trainer at the gym to return to fighting, which he rejects. This, coupled with the aforementioned recurring image of the boxer with the words “The manly art of self-defence”, suggests that the path of a fighter is more noble than that of a gangster. While the film shows the glamour that comes with the lifestyle, just like Cagney in The Public Enemy or Robinson in Little Ceaser, in the end, it all comes crashing down. Likewise, many may read into the film that the purification of Joji and Tokiko comes in the form of the only character throughout who wears traditional Japanese clothes, suggesting a traditional antidote to the perverted import of Western malaise. Although this is a reading I don’t buy into, as by all accounts, Ozu himself makes it no secret himself to be a fan of western culture in the form of Hollywood movies, with this picture, concluding his trilogy of Hollywood-inspired gangster movies, and in my view, some of the most underrated work of his long career.

Darkest Before Dawn

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Aeons before the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith or Edgar Wright, Yasujiro Ozu may be one of the earliest examples of a director to showcase his film buff credentials through his own work. The director’s early films, including his crime dramas and student comedies, are adorned with love for American films and frequently featured posters of Hollywood movies garnishing the walls. This expression of love for American film permeates That Night’s Wife. The film is almost entirely devoid of any Japanese iconography (with the one major exception being the titular wife in her kimono attire), even down to the point that there is no act of shoe removal when entering a home. From tall buildings with Greek pillars, men in fedoras, candlestick telephones, noir shadows or that Fritz Lang-esque shot of a handprint on the glass, this mixture of Americana and German expressionism creates an infectious pulp world. It’s this unabashed display of cinephilia which really makes me love Ozu’s crime trilogy alongside the pictures Walk Cheerfully and Dragnet Girl.

The premise of That Night’s Wife is very simple but highly effective. A father, Shuji Hashizume (Tokihiko Okada), robs an office to pay the medical expenses for his terminally ill daughter. The loving father, however, is not very convincing as a master criminal, appearing rather awkward as a bandana covers his visibly nervous face. This is further compounded by the sheer size of the urban space, the towering architecture and the army of police officers, all dwarfing the individual as he tries to evade the law after committing his crime. Rather, Shuji is an effete artist whose family of three appear to live in a bohemian, artist’s studio, covered in the aforementioned movie posters, travel souvenirs, and an abundance of paint cans scattered throughout, implying that Shuji is a starving painter (a graphic designer perhaps?).

Much of the runtime inside the apartment itself plays out in a series of shifting power dynamics and mind games (like a miniaturised version of the movie Sleuth), between the married couple and a taxi driver who turns out to be an undercover cop (Tōgō Yamamoto), most memorably during a sleep standoff between the wife (Emiko Yagumo) and the cop. The husband and wife are co-protagonists in the picture, in which the loyal wife ardently remains by her husband’s side despite objecting to his decision to steal money. There is a tender and intimate simplicity in watching a mother trying to keep this domestic situation together and caring for her ill child; after all, nobody does domesticity like Ozu.

That’s Night’s Wife is a film of simple moral dilemmas. The parents’ love for a child supersedes all else as a father willing to sacrifice himself and his future to ensure the survival of his daughter. He does make a run for it when the opportunity arises, but only for his conscience forcing him to return to the apartment and turn himself in (“I must obey the law and return my debt to society”). The cop, on the other hand, is a calm and compassionate guardian deeply moved by the family’s predicament but also knowing that the law must be served. – Is a man justified to steal money and hold others at gunpoint to save the life of his own kin because he can’t afford healthcare?

What the film doesn’t have in meaning primed to be deeply intellectualised, That Night’s Wife is a film buried in symbolism and visual metaphor. From the fish skeleton on a plate as a backdrop in the opening titles (an image of hunger, death and desperation), the pessimistic image of a flower dying in a half-empty glass of water (or is the glass half full?), to the recurring motif of the floppy doll on a toy swing (a visual representation of the daughter’s vulnerability?). But perhaps the most significant symbolism of all is the film’s passing of time. Set over the course of a single night, the film concludes with the daughter having survived her illness, after the sun has risen following a very long, tiring and difficult night. It’s always darkest before dawn.