Tokyo March
Year: 1929
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Rating: 7.0
Apparently, there is less than 30 minutes remaining of this film that originally
ran about 100 minutes. What is strange is that this seeming fragment makes
for a perfectly formed story from beginning to end - so I would be very curious
as to what is missing. This is from Kenji Mizoguchi, who along with Kurosawa,
Ozu and Naruse are considered the premiere directors from the Classic Period
of Japanese films - 1930 - 1960. By the time of the making of this film Mizoguchi
already had about fifty films to his credit. It is a silent film but in the
DVD presentation from Digital Meme they include a narration from a benshi.
As I mentioned in a previous review, the Japanese silent films had a benshi
narrating the film to the audience - and as shown in this film it is more
than just repeating the conversations but giving explanations as well and
even being poetic as it is here about the city of Tokyo. Digital Meme has
produced a series of ten dvds that they label Talking Silents. Even perhaps
more so in Japan than the USA, a huge percentage of the silent films have
been lost to fires, earthquakes and war - an estimated 5% remain.
The benshi tells us of this melodrama that certainly has a lot crammed into
its short duration and enough coincidences to play well in Bollywood. The
female benshi does all the voices - deep when a man and feminine when a woman.
Michiyo ( Shizue Natsukawa, who much to my amazement was in Okoma: The Orphan
Gambler (1971) that I just saw) is from a poor family. Her father left her
famous geisha mother when she was a baby and after her mother died she moved
in with her uncle and aunt. When the uncle loses his job Michiyo has to do
the right thing and follow in her mother's footsteps. But before this happens,
a young man from a wealthy family spots her and is instantly smitten. Imagine
his surprise when he goes out to celebrate with friends and sees her now
as a geisha. Realize that true geisha's were entertainers and servers for
customers - not prostitutes - but still not held in high regard by the upper
crust of society.
More shocks and surprises are to come as two friends vie for her love and
an older man has his past catch up with him. For what we have here it is
quite good - you have to really approach it as a short film that is a paean
to Tokyo and to mixed up love. The DVD begins with the great song Tokyo March
though I have no idea if that was sung when the film played in theaters -
maybe the Benshi did that as well.