Yojohan monogatari: Shofu shino / 四畳半物語 娼婦しの (‘Tale of the Four and Half Mat Room: Prostitute Shino’, 1966)

Obscure Japanese Film #189

Takahiro Tamura and Yoshiko Mita
 

Shino (Yoshiko Mita) is an amateur geisha working under the nameof O-Shige at a modest geisha house run by the money-loving Taneko (MichiyoKogure), where she also lives. This means that she lacks the musical anddancing skills of a true geisha and simply sleeps with men for money – notbecause it’s the life she wanted to lead, but because she has taken it uponherself to pay off his father’s debts so that he can avoid prison. Shino isinvolved with Ryukichi (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi), who works informally as Taneko’sprocurer, but he’s a lazy sponger, so she’s naturally not in love with him. 

 

Tamura, Mita and Tsuyuguchi
 

One day, Tadasu (Takahiro Tamura) visits the geisha house as a newclient. Compared to most of her customers, he’s kind and gentle, and the twofall in love. However, being a former samurai reduced to pickpocketing, he can’tafford to buy her freedom. He resolves to go straight, but meanwhile Ryukichibecomes jealous of their relationship and begins plotting revenge… 

 

 

Like the previously-reviewed CardsAre My Life, this was one of just five films written and directed byMasashige Narusawa, who was more usually a screenwriter only. This one is anadaptation of a short story by Kafu Nagai first published in 1917 – a storywhich went on to have a controversial history when a second, pornographic versionappeared and began to circulate on the black market. Nagai claimed thatsomebody else had added the explicit material without his knowledge, but manythought he had written it himself. After the later version was finally posthumouslypublished in 1972, the magazine publisher responsible was taken to court andcharged with obscenity. In any case, although Toei studios based their film onthe earlier version, their choice of it as material was one of the tentativesteps they were taking at the time to introduce more eroticism into their filmsas a means of competing with television, where such adult themes were notallowed. 

 

Yumiko Nogawa and Yoshiko Mita
 

As a film set in a single location, albeit with quite an elaborateexterior set as well as the interior one, this was also probably quite a cheapfilm to make, although it never looks it. Narusawa (who had studied underMizoguchi) uses long takes with few close-ups and little cutting – a style I’vealways admired as I feel that it promotes naturalistic acting and makes theviewer feel less led by the nose than in the many films which frequently cutfrom one close-up to another. Cinematographer Juhei Suzuki – who shot 13 Assassins (1963) and Tales of the Inner Chambers (1968) – also deserves credit for his mobilecamerawork, which enabled Narusawa to have only 39 cuts in the entire film.

 

 

On the other hand, the performances are adequate but notexceptional and the story is not terribly compelling, featuring as it does thetypes of characters and situations we’ve seen many times before. Narusawaretains the framing device used by Nagai (here featuring narration by amostly-unseen Eijiro Tono), but I’m not sure it added much. The one really poor choice,though, is the easy-listening jazz score by Harumi Ibe, which just seems out ofplace in a Japanese period film, especially when the strummed guitar andaccordion kick in, which lend a distinctly inappropriate French flavour to theproceedings!

Thanks to A.K.