Graceful Brute / Elegant Beast / Shitoyakana kedamono (1962)

Ayako Wakao

In the early sixties, Japanese films began to express a cynicism about the “new Japan” that was appearing* with the return of properity. Possibly the most cynical of all was Elegant Beast, in which we meet the perfect Ozu family turned on its head. Papa, Mama, Son, and Daughter live together, but they are completely supported by the dubious activities of the children. Their apartment was actually bought by a famous writer for the Daughter when she became his mistress, but she moved the family in and now the writer has to take her to hotels and, no matter how he tries, can’t manage to get them out. The Son has been embezzling money from the talent agency he works for. His Boss wants that money back to hide his own dubious monetary adventures from his clients as well as the tax collector.

Within the course of a very few hours, we meet all of these characters within the two room apartment where the family lives. Whenever an outsider such as the writer is heard on the stairs, there is a mad scramble to hide all the art works (including a “Renoir”**) and luxury items so that they can claim they are so poor they have nowhere else to go. Eventually we meet the elegant beast, Ayako Wakao in one of the greatest hairdos of the starched hair era, who is the book-keeper for the agency. The Son has been sleeping with her to get her to cover his embezzlement, when in fact she was stealing half of everything he took. She has also been sleeping with or promising to sleep with and blackmailing the Boss and the Tax Collector in order to manipulate even more money her way. She arrives to tell everyone that she has the money she needs and the game is now over, so everyone else can live with the consequences.

In plot outline, this is the familiar con men conned plot, but as it plays out, it becomes something different. What the screenwriter Kaneto Shindo provides is motivation for the family and for Wakao. Mom and Pop remember the terrifyingly real poverty of the post-war years, underlined by chilling freeze frames on each of the family member’s faces as they recall the past. And they are hardly living high on the hog — the apartment has only two rooms and all the stolen money has gone into negotiable items that can be resold if they ever find themselves really out on the street. Many of the scenes in which the whole family try to maneuver around each other are as intricate as the Marx Brothers in the ship’s cabin.

 

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Wakao is in an even more difficult situation, for she is a widow with a child to support. Even with her looks, she is unlikely to find a husband willing to take on the child, and she has been forced to learn to be independent. She is not stealing or sleeping around for a life of luxury. All her money will go into the purchase of a “love hotel,” and she stops the game as soon as she has made enough money for the purchase. On reflection, the worst crooks are the “victims,” the writer who really wants them out so he can install a different mistress, the boss who has been stealing from his clients, the tax collector who has been defrauding the government, all acting just as selfishly. But even more serious is the reflection of a social order in which everyone is forced to do unethical things simply to survive. It is an urban jungle, but without any hint of the violence that is a part of American “urban jungle” movies. Wakao’s withdrawal from the dog-eat-dog modern world is underlined by her conversion to kimono when she tells everyone else it is all over.

For the social historian, there is the detailed look at what a modern apartment really looked like in the early sixties and what it was like to fit a full family into it.

A great deal of the sympathy that eventually leaks through for the central characters should be credited to subtle performances from Wakao and from Yunosuke Ito and Hisano Yamaoka as the parents. But equal credit should also be given to the director Yuzo Kawashima. As we have seen so often in his other available movies, he has been able to find the human center of his characters in even the most desperate situations or dubious backgrounds.

As a piece of pure film-making, it is a technical marvel. There is no attempt to “open out” the story, for Kawashima keeps the camera almost completely confined to that single apartment. Even so, the shots never seem repetitive or static or give a sense of a filmed stageplay. It is not quite as tightly confined as Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, for it does take a few brief shots on the stairs leading to the doorway and there are two rooms plus a toilet and tiny balcony that provide some variety. Unlike Lifeboat, however, it is in the widest of wide screen, so he has to fill a much more awkward space.  Yet he never seems to be playing “Look at the brilliant director;” the shots and angles chosen all further the story or the characterizations.It is an absolutely masterful piece of directorial skill.

This is a real find. Fortunately, at present you can see it on YouTube.

* For only a few examples, see Black Test Car, Blood is Dry, Pigs and Battleships, Odd Obsession, etc.

** Renoir seemed to have a particular attraction for the Japanese middle classes, for we have seen  “Renoir” paintings show up in a number of movies, far more often than any other European painter. Perhaps it was the very recognizable style that made it a shorthand for western culture, much as from the thirties through the fifties, the preferred composers were Shubert and Chopin.