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| Mitsuko Mito and Eitaro Ozawa in Woman |
Tadashi: Eitaro Ozawa
Director: Keisuke Kinoshita
Screenplay: Keisuke Kinoshita
Cinematography: Hiroshi Kusuda
Art direction: Kazue Hirataka
Film editing: Yoshi Sugihara
Music: Chuji Kinoshita
Keisuke Kinoshita can often be accused of trying too much or of not trying enough. Both faults are on display in his Woman, a noirish story of a thief and his mistress. Kinoshita's love for trying out effects that don't quite work is on display in the artily tilted camerawork that adds an expressionist note to scenes that don't really demand it. It's the sort of thing that a film student might attempt for a class, not something you expect from a director who had been working for five years and already had eight features to his credit, including the well-received Morning for the Osone Family (1946). Still, the scenes are shot well by Kinoshita's regular cinematographer, Hiroshi Kusuda. Where Kinoshita gets sloppy is more troubling: The dialogue is badly post-synched, especially noticeable in the extreme closeups that dominate the film toward the end. And once again, Kinoshita lets his brother Chuji's score meander around behind scenes where it feels awkwardly matched to the mood. But Woman is also one of Kinoshita's better films, overcoming its weaknesses with a fine economy of story. It's only a little over an hour long, but it packs a lot of intensity of feeling into that run time. Eitaro Ozawa plays Tadashi, a crook who has just made a big score with a home invasion and persuades his mistress, Toshiko, played by Mitsuko Mito, to go on the run with him to a seaside resort where he will meet up with his accomplices and settle up the proceeds of the theft. She has a steady gig as a dancer in the chorus of a musical revue that she's reluctant to ditch, but he's persuasive in his own brutally infatuated way. The bulk of the film deals with their on-again, off-again relationship: Will she stay or will she go? Ozawa is the more expressive of the two actors, which is fine because he has the more volatile role, switching in an instant from anger at her reluctance to pleading for her submission to menacing her with a knife. Mito's face can be inexpressive at key moments, making Toshiko a rather enigmatic character, but she manages to suggest the deep conflict at work within: Having risen from bar hostess (a step up from prostitution) to chorus girl, she seems to think her life has taken an upward turn that staying with Tadashi might reverse, even though he promises her a life of riches. The denouement comes when Tadashi asks her to sell a piece of the stolen goods for him. She refuses, but just at that moment there's a shout of "Fire!" and people start running to see the burning building. The keeper of the shop where Tadashi plans to sell the loot steps out to join the rubberneckers, pulling the door shut behind him but not locking it, and to Toshiko's horror, Tadashi takes the opportunity to slip into the store and filch some more goodies. She decides enough is enough and tries to run away, with Tadashi in pursuit through a gathering crowd. Kinoshita stages the fire and the melee around it very well, giving some needed action to what has been a rather talky film. In the end, Tadashi is caught and Toshiko returns to the chorus line, a somewhat flat and anticlimactic ending to a film that has generated some real tension.
