Obscure Japanese Film #242

Akiko (Izumi Ashikawa) is theonly child of her father (Tsutomu Shimomoto) and mother (YumejiTsukioka) and is approaching marriageable age. She has alwaysregarded her academic father as cold and remote and seen littleevidence of love between her parents, so she’s keen not to make amistake in choosing her own husband. Pressured into going on anarranged date with the boorish Hasuike (Yuji Odaka), she’s far fromimpressed when he takes her to the cinema to see a grade-Z western,but as she begins seriously thinking about her options for thefuture, she finds herself looking back at the past...

ThisNikkatsu production was based on a novel of the same name by TorahikoTamiya (1911-88) originally published as a serial in a women’smagazine the year before. His work is unavailable in English, butalso provided the basis for the previously-reviewed Love is Lost(1956) and Stepbrothers (1957) among other films. Featuringsome voiceover narration from Ashikawa’s character, the filmunfolds in a sometimes confusing flashback structure and wanders offinto some subplots of dubious relevance. However, despite theseflaws, the film turns out to be a surprisingly serious and thoughtfulstory of a young woman finding out who her parents really are –and, by extension, who she really is. It’s also very nicely-handledby director Eisuke Takizawa, who elicits good performances all round and also made the recently-reviewedpicture The Samurai of Edo.

Ona cultural note, there’s a scene in which Akiko visits a barpopular with students where they sing Russian folk songs in Japaneseand all seem to know the words, an odd phenomenon also featured inthe 1956 film Gyakukosen. Incidentally,although there’s a close-up of the poster for the film Hasuiketakes Akiko to at the cinema, I was unable to identify it despitetranslating the text – was it such a low-budget piece of crap thatit’s vanished without a trace or was it a fictional film that neverexisted in the first place?

Inoru hito is sometimes translated (incorrectly in my view) as ‘ThePraying Man’, which I don’t think was ever an official Englishtitle. While the standard translation of inoru is ‘pray’,it can also be interpreted less literally as ‘hope’, while hitois genderless and can be read as ‘person’ / ‘people’ /‘human(s)’, etc. As there's a scene in which Akiko is shown in apraying posture, it seems likely that the title refers to her, andthere’s certainly no male character it could relate to. A betterEnglish title, then, might be ‘One Who Prays.’

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Film at Amazon Prime Video Japan