When it comes to a message about the changes upon Japan society because of the U.S. military bases, Kobayashi’s “Black River” definitely showcases a message of a corrupted culture. As the third film featured in the “Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System”, “Black River” is another worthy addition to this DVD box set.
Image courtesy of © 1956 Shochiku Co., Ltd. © 2013 All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Black River (as part of the Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System)
YEAR OF FILM: 1956
DURATION: 110 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Black and White, 1:33:1 Aspect Ratio, Monaural, Japanese with English subtitles
COMPANY: Janus Films/The Criterion Collection
RELEASED: April 16, 2013
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi
Based on the Story by Takeo Tomishima
Written by Zenzo Matsuyama
Music by Chuji Kinoshita
Cinematography by Yuharu Atsuta
Art Direction by Kazue Hirataka
Starring:
Fumio Watanabe as Nishida
Ineko Arima as Shizuka
Tatsuya Nakadai as Killer Joe
Asao Sano
Seiji Miyaguchi
Eijiro Tono
Perhaps Masaki Kobayashi’s most sordid film, Black River examines the rampant corruption on and around U.S. military bases in Japan following World War II. Kobayashi spirals out from the story of a love triangle that develops between a good-natured student, his innocent girlfriend, and a coldhearted petty criminal (Tatsuya Nakadai, in his first major role) to reveal a nation slowly succumbing to lawlessness and violence.
When it comes to Japanese cinema, when Masaki Kobayashi’s name comes up, one will remember the filmmaker for being a pacifist but taking on films that criticized his country’s social and political orders.
Best known for his trilogy of films titled “The Human Condition” (1959-1961), a trilogy on the effects of World War II on a Japanese pacifist and socialist, Kobayashi is also known for his films “Harakiri” (1962, which won the Jury Prize at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival) and “Kwaidan ” (1964, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival and received a “Best Foreign Language Film” Academy Award nomination).
But prior to these cinematic masterpiece, Kobayashi showed a rebellious side in his earlier films from the ’50s. To best showcase his earlier work, The Criterion Collection has put together four of his earlier films in an Eclipse Series set titled “Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System”.
Included are the following three films from the ’50s and one from the ’60s : “The Thick-Walled Room” (“Kabe atsuki heya”, 1953), “I Will Buy You” (“Anata Kaimasu”, 1956), “Black River” (“Kuroi kawa”, 1957) and “The Inheritance” (“Karami-Ai”, 1964).
With “The Thick-Walled Room” focusing on Japanese prisoners during American occupation and “I Will Buy You” focusing on the Japanese business of scouting and high earnings for an upcoming college baseball player, for the film “Black River”, Masaki Kobayashi focused on life for Japanese near the U.S. military bases near Japan following World War II.
With many Japanese not having an income, for one neighborhood near Atsugi naval air base, the people living in the area are poor and Japanese women earn their money through prostitution while bars catering to American serviceman can be seen in the area. The area invites the criminal element, especially the yakuza and the message that Kobayashi wants people to see is how can this behavior go on without anyone being punished?
“Black River” focuses on a group of people living in the slum neighborhood, just barely surviving. And for many of them, they live under a landlord (portrayed by Isuzu Yamada) who is becoming more adamant when it comes to collecting the end of the month rent. But unknown to them is that the landlord is conspiring with a yakuza named Killer Joe (portrayed by Tatsuya Nakadai) to drive the residents out, so she can install a bathhouse. The landlord has also hired a woman to take the feces from the waste area and use it as fertilizer for plants to be planted near the slum.
For book seller/reader Nishida (portrayed by Fumio Watanabe), he is more interested in doing his work and reading that working a full-time or part-time job and rather not integrate with the people living in the slum but preferring to live in the area because it is cheap. Shizuko (portrayed by Ineko Arima) is a local girl who works to pay the bills and has an interest in Nishida.
The two live alongside a man with tuberculosis who is sick and his wife is trying to help him, several prostitutes and a husband who finds out his wife is a prostitute for the American servicemen.
And while the US military police try to prevent prostitution, servicemen end up finding their way into the neighborhood.
As for Shizuko, her life is changed when Killer Joe stages a kidnapping and comes to save Shizuko, but ends up raping her and making her his girlfriend. But when Joe finds out that she has an interest towards Nishida, and she tells Nishida the truth of what happened to her and why she’s with a guy like Joe, what will happen?
VIDEO:
“Black River” is presented in black and white (1:33:1 Aspect Ratio). Considering the film is nearly 60-years-old, this film fares better compared to “The Thick-Walled Room†which had a bit of damage and white and black specks. For “Black Riverâ€, picture quality is much better and looks great on DVD. The film looks very good for its age, better contrast with white and grays, black levels are good and no signs of excessive digital noise reduction, flicker and maintains a good amount of detail.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Black River” is presented in Japanese monaural with English subtitles. Dialogue is clear and heard no significant clicks, pops or humming through the entire film.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Eclipse Series releases do not come with special features but included in the insert is a background on Kobayashi and the information about the “Black River”.
“Black River” has a message from filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi that tries to show how life for people after post-war and those living near the U.S. military bases are being affected negatively by Western culture.
The message of western culture affecting other countries is nothing new. Even in feudal Japan with the first confrontation of foreign merchants, there have always been a belief that the foreigners brought diseases and other unwanted situations to their country and it changed people for the worse.
Even today, the political debate of US bases in Asia is still a sore spot for many people and unfortunate, even American soldiers have been guilty of committing crimes upon Japanese that increases the hostility of locals even more.
But after World War II, Japan was under uncertain times. Actually, many countries and their future were uncertain as people lived in poverty, without jobs, without income and people did things in order to survive.
For “Black River”, women are seen turning to prostitution in order to make money. Men were unemployed and in order to get things done (or to get people out of an establishment), some turned to the yakuza.
While the living conditions of these people are bad but not the worst, the message that Kobayashi delivered with this film at the time is why isn’t anything being done to stop this deviant behavior?
The film also goes into the woman’s right after rape. The character of Shizuko is set-up by Killer Joe, who has been infatuated with the young woman and pretends to be her savior, when in truth, he became the man who raped her while she was unconscious.
The following day, she wants Killer Joe to accompany her to the police but Joe reminds her that all it would do is embarrass the both of them. And she knows it is true. Rape laws were not as strong as today and even in America during the 1950’s, rape was only punishable if there was extreme physical violence involved. If a woman did not fight back, there was no crime. Eventually, laws in the 1960’s would later change this but Masaki Kobayashi knew that it was terrible that a woman’s word was not strong enough and Kobayashi showed the film that because of her situation, she couldn’t tell police because she was unconscious at the time and probably for many rape victims in Japan of the time, whether or not it was intentional, the message was that women had to bear the burden after becoming a rape victim, as there were no major rape laws in Japan.
As for the film, while enjoyable as a whole, the problem lies within its pacing as the film starts introducing us to the people who live in the slum village but then begins to focus on Nishida, Shizuka and Joe and the love triangle that exists for the three. The other characters featured in the first half are not given the same presence by the second half and you tend to forget them, as your attention is diverted on the love triangle and how things will eventually resolve itself by the end of the film.
Still, when it comes to a message about the changes upon Japan society because of the U.S. military bases, Kobayashi’s “Black River” definitely showcases a message of a corrupted culture. As the third film featured in the “Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System”, “Black River” is another worthy addition to this DVD box set.