While Yet a Wife / 妻の日の愛のかたみに / Tsuma no hi no ai no katamini (1965)
Obscure Japanese Film #141
Ayako WakaoChieko (Ayako Wakao)and Kitahara (Eiji Funakoshi) are country schoolteachers who get married andappear to be the perfect couple. Liked but a little envied by the locals forhaving such a happy relationship, the two are looking forward to having achild. Then one day Chieko begins to suffer from mysterious pains which won’tgo away. A doctor diagnoses arthritis, and the young couple find their liveschanged forever…
Eiji Funakoshi
This Daiei production wasbased on a memoir by Mieko Ikegami and adapted by Keisuke Kinoshita, butdirected by Daiei contract director Sokichi Tomimoto, who made six films withAyako Wakao. It has something of the feel of a Kinoshita film – albeit a minorone – due to the rural setting and score by Kinoshita’s brother and regularcollaborator, Chuji Kinoshita. Unfortunately, this is one of those times whenthe composer does not seem to realise that silence would sometimes bepreferable, and the film suffers from an overuse of maudlin harp and stringsthroughout.
The story’s pretty thinfor a 90-minute picture, hence the brevity of my synopsis, and it’s notconvincing as a portrait of someone suffering from severe arthritis, probablybecause the studio didn’t want to risk making Wakao look unattractive. It’snice to see the underrated Eiji Funakoshi in a serious leading role for achange, and he does as good a job as anyone could be expected to under thecircumstances, as does his more celebrated co-star. Although he was often castin comic roles, the highlight of Funakoshi’s career was undoubtedly in KonIchikawa’s Fires on the Plain (1959),an atypical part for him, but a good example of successful casting againsttype.
All in all, this is a decent enough tearjerker, but nothing more.
Note on the title: TheJapanese title translates as something like ‘In the Spirit of Love on My Wife’sDay’
Thanks to A.K.
DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles).
