Tribute to Kenji Mizoguchi 2017 / Naniwa ereji / Japan 1936
Ayako, a company telephone operator, needs to cover her father’s drinking bills and her brother’s school fees, although neither thanks her for her efforts. She pins her hopes on eloping with her fiancé. The film marked the start of a lifelong collaboration with screenwriter Yoda Yoshikata and made Mizoguchi the most famous director in Japan.
An assertively angry film, Osaka Elegy was deliberately intended as a social and cultural bombshell in the increasingly militarist Japan of 1936. It marked the start of a lifelong collaboration with the screenwriter Yoda Yoshikata and made Mizoguchi the most famous director in Japan. Although it uses the old name of Osaka (“Naniwa”) in its Japanese title, it’s set in the present and is burningly topical. Yamada plays Ayako, a company telephone operator, who becomes the kept woman of her boss, Asai. Ayako’s earnings need to cover her father’s drinking bills and her brother’s school fees, although neither thanks her for her efforts. She pins her hopes on eloping with her fiancé and steals money to pay for it, but when that plan falls apart there’s nothing left for her but what she calls “delinquency.” The punchy, confrontational ending is more like Sam Fuller than the usual Mizoguchi.
Tony Rayns
71 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Kenji Mizoguchi
/ Screenplay Yoshikata Yoda podle románu / based on the novel Mieko by Saburo Okada
/ Dir. of Photography Minoru Miki
/ Music Koichi Takagi
/ Editor Tatsuko Sakane
/ Producer Masaichi Nagata
/ Production Dai-ichi Eiga
/ Cast Isuzu Yamada, Benkei Shiganoya, Eitaro Shindo, Kensaku Hara, Yoko Umemura
/ Sales Shochiku Co., Ltd.
/ Contact Kawakita Memorial Film Institute
Kawakita Memorial Film Institute
18, Ichibancho, Chiyoda-Ku, 102-0082, Tokyo
Japan
Phone: +81 332 653 281
Fax: +81 332 653 276
E-mail: [email protected]
Shochiku Co., Ltd.
4-1-1 Tsukiji, Togeki Bldg. 12th Floor, Chuo-Ku, 104 8422, Tokyo
Japan
Phone: +81 355 501 623
Fax: +81 355 501 654
E-mail: [email protected]
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