Twenty-something Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka)’s young son is taken ill and his treatment doesn’t come free. She’s already sold off many of her possessions (her last remaining kimono, for instance) to provide money for food and rent. Her husband has not yet returned from serving in World War II so there’s no source of income there. And her sister is similarly struggling to subsist. Tokiko considers something that would normally be unthinkable: prostituting herself. Upon his repatriation, Shuichi (Shūji Sano) asks his wife how she managed to pay for little Hiroshi’s medical bills – and Tokiko, who is honest to a fault, reluctantly tells him.

It’s this section and what follows that is very problematic, particularly with a 2021 gaze. Shuichi…

Kaze no naka no mendori is a quite particular film within Yasujirō Ozu's filmography; although formally made with the Japanese director's distinctive formal rigor, the plot and some of its themes are closer to something one would expect to find in a work by Kenji Mizoguchi. On this occasion, Ozu focuses his attention on the precariousness and sacrifices of the women who tried to subsist during the war, their longing for happy days, the attempt to cope with the absence of a husband who was at the front, and the marital problems they have to confront upon his return. Ozu portrays the period of war and the immediate post-war aftermath; poor neighborhoods and desolate landscapes that foreshadow the inevitable defeat…

Families fester and erode in Ozu's films. The incomplete, dissolving family was a convention, which Ozu used to show the disparity between Meiji ideals and the real conditions in which people lived. Whether it’s widowed fathers or widowed mothers raising children under financial duress, submissive fathers failing the expectations of their sons, homeless children seeking some semblance of family to take them in, estranged fathers wanting to reconcile with their adult children, single mothers widely misunderstood by their children, or domestic patriarchy crushed by unemployment, the dissolution of the family is a central ideological construct of Ozu's work that sought to critique the failure of Meiji promises. 

A HEN IN THE WIND taps into these conventions, borrowing many of its…

A Hen in The Wind: Ketika Sang Istri Dihadapkan pada Situasi Sulit

I'd sell my soul to raise my child

Selain Tokyo Twilight, A Hen in The Wind adalah karya Ozu yang bernuansa kelam sejauh ini yang saya tonton.

A Hen in The Wind mengambil latar waktu pasca perang dunia II--di mana harga kebutuhan pokok melambung tinggi pada masa tersebut. Tokiko dengan sabar menunggu kepulangan suaminya dari perang.
Namun, putra kecilnya--Hiroshi jatuh sakit dan butuh perawatan dokter. Tokiko tak memiliki uang untuk membayar biaya perawatan Hiroshi, ia pun terpaksa masuk ke dunia prostitusi tanpa sepengetahuan suaminya yang akan berdampak pada hubungan Tokiko dan suaminya di kemudian hari.

Sudah jatuh tertimpa tangga dan kulkas pula. Istilah ini cocok untuk menggambarkan keadaan…

"That's it for me. I'm exhausted"
"Don't be like that. Dream like you used to."

Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) is trying to make ends meet while her husband Shuichi (Shuji Sano) is away serving in the army. When their son gets ill, Tokiko becomes desperate to pay the hospital bill, leading to selling her body for a night. Shuichi returns, Tokiko can't bear to lie about what she did, the drama unfolds.

This is more openly emotionally intense film than most of Ozu's work, bordering into melodrama. There's less restraint, perhaps to reflect the raw emotion of post war Japan. Ozu even displays some very rare on-screen violence, the first since Dragnet Girl 15 years prior. (Though even that film looked…

A Hen in the Wind is minor Ozu – but given the filmic heights he would regularly soar, even his lesser works remain profound and deeply interesting.

Tokiko’s (Kinuyo Tanaka) son falls desperately ill. His father has yet to return from the war and so she is forced to prostitute herself to fund the urgent treatment. Times are shown to be exceptionally tough in occupied Japan. Dignity is in short supply. The happiness of her husband's (Shûji Sano) return is short lived. Tokiko’s decides to be truthful about her actions – but instead of forgiveness and understanding her husband Shuichi treats her only with disgust and intolerance.

Ozu offers a very dark view of humanity here. Tokiko is forced to…

Like Ozu’s previous film There Was a Father, this work is defined by absence. There are many absences in both films: the overt and the subtle; the very literal and the metaphorical. This creates a lingering melancholy, and a sense of hopelessness, very in keeping with the narrative.

This socio-realist melodrama is about what happens to a woman forced into grave financial difficulties after having to pay for hospital treatment for her child. The theme of sacrifice is established here, and it echoes throughout the film. Our protagonist remedies her financial woes through sex work - one time. This leads to conflict and judgement - and sets the scene for an immersive drama.

There are some similarities to Ozu’s silent…

A Hen in the Wind would be Yasujiro Ozu’s attempt to reflect the struggling domestic conditions within and shortly after the Second World War, a country in crisis as soldiers defeated and return home to their normal lives after four to six years of service. Instead of the traditional story of such a period, Ozu’s film captures the commonly unseen housewife, the one waiting and enduring with such patience and strength, at times falling from grace when harsh reality strikes them and such desperate measures needed to be taken. In this film, a mother and wife, Tokiko Amamiya, finds her child frightfully ill, hospitalised out of necessity, left with an enormous bill to recompense; a complication that would lead her…

Twenty-something Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka)’s young son is taken ill and his treatment doesn’t come free. She’s already sold off many of her possessions (her last remaining kimono, for instance) to provide money for food and rent. Her husband has not yet returned from serving in World War II so there’s no source of income there. And her sister is similarly struggling to subsist. Tokiko considers something that would normally be unthinkable: prostituting herself. Upon his repatriation, Shuichi (Shūji Sano) asks his wife how she managed to pay for little Hiroshi’s medical bills – and Tokiko, who is honest to a fault, reluctantly tells him.

It’s this section and what follows that is very problematic, particularly with a 2021 gaze. Shuichi…

Ungewohnt melodramatisches Werk Ozus, das mir trotz der (für seine Verhältnisse) eher geringen Komplexität und durchschnittlichen Wertungen, ausgesprochen gut gefallen hat. Leerer als sonst sehen sie aus, die Bilder, die er 1948, wenige Jahre nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg aufnahm, um die Geschichte einer jungen Frau zu erzählen, die sich während sie auf die Rückkehr ihres Mannes aus eben jenem Krieg wartet, zu prostituieren beginnt um finanziell über die Runden zu kommen und ihrem Mann, der nach seiner Rückkehr versucht die Hintergründe hierfür nachvollziehen und sie akzeptieren zu können.

Oft sehen wir sekundenlang leere Straßen, leere Wiesen, leere Blicke, spüren die Verzweiflung, die aus der aus der Not geborenen Situation entstand. Vieles erinnert mich sehr an die italienischen Werke jener Tage,…

Like Ozu’s previous film There Was a Father, this work is defined by absence. There are many absences in both films: the overt and the subtle; the very literal and the metaphorical. This creates a lingering melancholy, and a sense of hopelessness, very in keeping with the narrative.

This socio-realist melodrama is about what happens to a woman forced into grave financial difficulties after having to pay for hospital treatment for her child. The theme of sacrifice is established here, and it echoes throughout the film. Our protagonist remedies her financial woes through sex work - one time. This leads to conflict and judgement - and sets the scene for an immersive drama.

There are some similarities to Ozu’s silent…