Late Chrysanthemums (Mikio Naruse, 1954)

My second Naruse, and given the subject matter, I kept thinking about how this treatment of the lives of former geisha differs from Mizoguchi. There are no elegant, scroll-like tracking shots, and very little in the way of romantic longing or star-crossed lovers reckoning with their pasts. This is a defiantly present-tense film, with the former geisha appearing not as representatives of gender inequity but rather as anachronisms. In fact, the ex-geisha of Late Chrysanthemums are simply viewed as women who have aged out of a profession, and now must struggle to make a living in postwar Japan. However, the four "sisters" find themselves in very different economic positions, and the dominant theme throughout Late Chrysanthemums is that money, not sex or love, controls everything.

Again, whereas Mizoguchi was uniquely captivated by the plight of geisha, Naruse is more concerned with their place within a Japanese culture that is undergoing the growing pains of postwar modernity. These women are a throwback to a recent past, emblems of a Japan that is rapidly disappearing. In this regard, Naruse is far more interested in the shifting economic forces that ensnare these women and those around them. The scenes of counting money, paying overdue rent, or offering money procured though dubious means, are too plentiful to ignore. Late Chrysanthemums almost recalls Bresson's L'Argent in this regard.

Among the four women, Kin (Tokyo Story's Haruko Sugimura) is clearly the dominant one. She alone was able to save the money she made during the geisha days, and so she is now a small-time landlord, renting out the neighborhood homes and restaurant / bar where most of the action takes place. The bar is run by Nobu (Sadako Sawamura), the sister most removed from the ongoing dramas depicted. If she is also somewhat stable, it has as much to do with her husband still being alive as it does any good choices on her part. By contrast, Tamae (Chikako Hosokawa) and Tomi (Yūko Mochizuki) are war widows with adult children. Tamae's son Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Koizumi) is an unambitious layabout who eventually hooks up with an unseen woman of means, presumably older. Tomi, who is a gambling addict, relies on her adult daughter Sachiko (Ineko Arema) for support, and is cross when Sachiko announces her plans to wed.

Given that Late Chrysanthemums is a multi-generational ensemble piece with a relatively large cast, Naruse organizes things in terms of pairs. The main characters almost always encounter each other in twos, providing the opportunity for in-depth individuation and the subtle explication of the characters' past relationships. We learn that Kin, who never married or had children, is seen as a figure apart, someone who chose financial security over family. She is the only one beset by ghosts from her past, men seeking her out in the present-day for romantic and/or money-related reasons. During Kin's disappointing reconnection with Tabe (Ken Uehara), an old suitor turned salaryman, Naruse employs an internal monologue for the only time in the entire film, giving us unique access to Kin's subjectivity.

Naruse's use of space and camerawork recalls Ozu at times, but is considerably less rigid and rectilinear. The definition of architecture and arrangement of figures within it seems to emphasize ownership as a kind of dominance, with Kin striding into any building she pleases in order to collect the rent, while others are marginalized in corners, if they aren't actually hiding from Kin in back rooms. Exterior shots emphasize just how tiny the main characters' domain actually is, an alley off a low-rent commercial district. So they are bound together in a web of mutual interdependence that sustains everybody, even as it provides satisfaction for none. 

It is only near the end of the film, when Kiyoshi is leaving for Hokkaido with his girlfriend, that Late Chrysanthemums opens up a little, to show him, Tamae, and Tomi seeing him off in an airport cafe. Tamae makes it clear that she will likely die from loneliness, but after Kiyoshi is gone, she and Tomi walk together and take stock of their lives, a moment of reflection afforded to characters who have mostly grappled with the immediate needs of the moment. Naruse isn't just showing Kiyoshi, or Sachiko for that matter, going off to live new lives. Within their limited means, they are embracing a new Japanese ethos that has no place for their mothers. Late Chrysanthemums is a film about a society in transition, and those left in the interstices to fend for themselves.