A more “productive” week this one, as far as Japanese movie watching goes 
ビルマの竪琴 / The Burmese Harp
1956, Kon Ichikawa
A few days after Japan’s capitulation, a Japanese squad surrenders to the British. One of the soldiers, Mizushima - who while in Burma learned to play the harp, is sent to attempt to convince another squad to surrender, while his comrades are taken to a prison camp. They hope to see him again and that they’ll all eventually return home together and rebuild their country, but soon they find out Mizushima has had an epiphany…
zzz
Very different from Ichikawa’s harrowing Fires on the Plain - a quieter, more contemplative film which, although it does not shy from showing the horrors of war, is more about the disillusionment and shock that followed the war, for those on the losing side.
It leans heavily on the principles of Buddhism to leave a message about humanism and the importance of compassion, perhaps even as a means of atonement for the damage done.
The acting is typical Japanese, with a few melodramatic scenes but even those work quite well in the overall context. Cinematography is good overall, even outstanding at times.
As far as anti-war films go, this one is right up there with the best. Highly recommended!
Shall we ダンス？ / Shall We Dance?
1996, Masayuki Suô
A bored Japanese accountant sees a beautiful woman in the window of a ballroom dance studio. He secretly starts taking dancing lessons to be near her, and then over time discovers how much he loves ballroom dancing.
zzz
At first I was thinking “Why am I even watching this?” but by the end turned to “Awwww!” 
It’s a fairly light dramedy (NOT a romcom, thankfully!) that grows on you with some sweet moments but also some Japanese wackiness (which, suprinsingly, no longer feel overdone or out of place).
Not one I’m likely to watch again, but not at all bad for what it was.
Kôji Yakusho puts in a very good performance (as per), although I had a little hard time at first seeing him as a サラリーマン
The supporting cast were pretty good, too. The lady playing the dance instructor and fake love interest was just okay, explained by the fact that she was actually a real professional dancer at her first film role here.
I’d say this works better in a Japense setting, where (as explained by the prologue voiceover) Western ballroom dancing is at best an oddity, at worst frowned upon.
I suppose the considerably higher (versus the US remake) ratings for it on IMDb and LB confirm it.
At one point one character - the PI hired by the wife to find out whether the main character has an affair - states: “He was seen making strange body movements…” 
Oh, there was a cool callback to The King and I with Yul Brinner and Deborah Kerr 
I should probably keep a count of the various translations I see in subs for いただきます - I think here was the fifth or even sixth one
あらくれ / Untamed Woman
1957, Mikio Naruse
In 1910s Japan, Shima, a young woman goes through multiple relationships - we’d call them toxic nowadays.
zzz
TLDR: Men are pigs. (Okay, certain men in a certain country in a certain era, but… still…)
or
alt-TLDR: Hideko Takamine rides a bicycle! 
At its core, this one is similar to Mizoguchi’s Life of Oharu, but where there poor Oharu was just stoically taking in all the shit that happened to her, here Shima stands up for herself and even more so than other women in Naruse’s own films.
It’s maybe a full-fledged feminist film, if you will, with a strong independent woman who knows what she wants and won’t just curl up and die.
A dead serious film, with enough of unhappy situations and even domestic violence (not something new for Naruse, see Older Brother, Younger Sister) but there were a few opportunities to also include a bit of comedy, in a “Hah! Well done, Shima!” way.
The cast is impressive to say the least, with the likes of Ken Uehara, Seiji Miyaguchi, Masayuki Mori and even Tatsuya Nakadai in an early role (the man acted from 1956 to 2020 …and is still alive and kicking!).
But this is Hideko Takamine’s show through-and-through and she’s just wonderful… again!
Elsewhere she had been elegant, innocent, submissive, serious, comic, mischevious; here she is assertive and even fierce at times, but just as natural as in any of the other roles.
Again the scale tips in her favour (in the “fight” with Setsuko Hara), but honestly with all she’s got going for her across what I’ve seen so far, I’ve now got a feeling the balance may not be restored
山の音 / Sound of the Mountain
1954, Mikio Naruse
An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.
zzz
TLDR: Men are pigs. (certain men in a certain country in a certain era, more men from the same country in a different era… wait, what is going on here?)
or
alt-TLDR: Hideko Takamine Setsuko Hara rides a bicycle.
The “corrections” above may make it sound like the two films are very similar, but they aren’t really.
The IMDb blurb I included may make it sound like there’s a romantic relationship between the young wife and her father-in-law but there isn’t.
It’s just Naruse taking another jab at the Japanese “ideal” family, this time without domestic violence but somehow even more painful, due to a shocking decision from Kikuko, the wife driven to an extreme by the disdain her husband has for her. While his parents are kind to her (and not so much to their own daughter who has her own marital problems) they are slow to react and get involved. By the time they (or, rather, the father-in-law) actually do try to help… it’s already too late, the damage is done.
Ken Uehara as the husband (like in the previous film) is right up there with Masayuki Mori in the “shitty men” category 
(roles, not the actors themselves, obviously )
Setsuko Hara… on the surface hers is a “simple” role here, but really it’s anything but. Kikuko is quite a mystery: blank pleasantness and submisiveness (as expected of a “good” wife, I guess?) on the surface but only as a cover for a complex character that “leaks out” in small gestures or brief facial expressions. And Hara’s very good at portraying it, she definitely regained most if not all of the ground lost to Takamine the other day.
A very good film, but a pretty grim one (more so than others from Naruse) and very much “a downer”. Even so… deffo recommended!
The more films by Naruse I watch (9 so far, more on the watchlist), the more bewildering it is to me how he’s somehow left out of the group with Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi. I for one would put him above Mizoguchi and on the same level with the other two.
越前竹人形 / Bamboo Doll of Echizen
1963, Kôzaburô Yoshimura
Kisuke, a bamboo worker, meets Tamae, a prostitute who was an erm, “acquaintance” of his father. He becomes infatuated with Tamae and marries her but it’s not quite smooth sailing from there on.
zzz
TLDR: The Oscar for the most stupid male character in movie history should go to this Kisuke chap. Who in their right mind would marry Ayako Wakao and not play doctor with her?!?
Based on a novel by Tsutomu Mizukami, this is a quite dark, sad tale of a man’s insecurities but also the dreadful fate of a woman who goes from whore to wife to doll to mother, with an invisible noose tightening around her.
The acting is a little… odd, with good dialogue delivered into a manner resembling… children’s tales. It does not really suit the story being told here.
But the cinematography is great (by Kazuo Miyagawa - same guy who worked on Rashomon, Yojimbo, Sansho the Bailiff, Ugetsu, Street of Shame… and others) with some striking compositions and excellent use of black and white; although I do wonder how it might have looked in colour, there was plenty of potential there 
And then there is, of course, the big elephant in the room (well, actually small and delicate 
): Ayako Wakao… one of the (if not even the) most beautiful Japanese actresses. I mean, come on, the film’s worth watching just for her alone 
. We watched Mary and the witch’s flower recently with the young ones. It felt so much like a Ghibli studio production that the English dub sounded oddly out of place, even though the story was set somewhere in the UK.
