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A principle difficulty faced by the aspiring artist or writer is the thorny issue of what constitutes legitimacy in a field where success and failure are attained in a seemingly endless variety of ways. Any course seems to be expensive and have at best a 10% chance of paying off. Add to that the normal difficulties faced by a woman in early to mid 20th century Japan and you can see why the story of author and poet Fumiko Hayashi is so remarkable. Her autobiography was adapted by Mikio Naruse in 1962, a good film called A Wanderer's Notebook (放浪記), with an extraordinary performance from Hideko Takamine as Hayashi.



The first scene of the film is a keen thesis statement for the rest--as a child, Hayashi accompanies her mother (Kinuyo Tanaka) to the police station where her father is being questioned. A street musician, he's accused of panhandling. The cops demand that he sing to prove he's really a musician but the man's so nervous he can't sing well. They conclude he was only pulling a scam--he's fined. The incident reminded me of the story from Alfred Hitchcock's childhood where his father sent him to a police station to be locked in a cell for being "naughty." Much as that incident seems to have inspired Hitchcock to make film after film about people wrongly accused of crimes, the incident from Hayashi's youth makes her keenly aware of the precariousness of an artistic career throughout her life.



In one sense, it makes her a fighter, constantly writing and submitting work to publishers, and in another sense, it gives her crippling low self-esteem. When the cops mistake her for a prostitute and thief later in the film, despite a friend's insistence that she's a writer, she puts up only a half-hearted defence and allows them to take her to the station without complaint.



She takes jobs in factories and bars to support herself and her lovers. She tries to get a job as a secretary but immediately leaves when it's clear her prospective boss expects her to have sex with him for the job. Working as a bar hostess, which in Japan entailed fawning over and chatting with men, she can play along but is less willing to put up with bullshit. In one extraordinary scene she fires off a rapid series of insults at a group of unruly drunks.



It works all the better because of Takamine's performance. I've seen her in a lot of movies but never like this. I suppose it's because she's affecting some of the real Hayashi's dialect and mannerisms--she's a little hunched and has a rolling gait, almost a swagger. She comes off as a tough dame which makes her moments of vulnerability all the more effective--and Takamine seems aware that she needs only subtle changes to achieve a great effect. In one of my favourite scenes, she comes home to find her lover with his mistress who claims to be his wife. She sits down as though nothing's odd and casually explains that she's his wife too--a slightly trembling lip and a few furtive looks are the small, devastating indications of what's happening under her tough exterior.



When her book is published late in the film, people comment on the number of men in her life. As she explains to her mother, she hates men but also can't help loving them. Her roommate early on, played by Daisuke Kato, is a widower who falls head over heels for her and is eager to lend her money whenever she asks. But when she tells him she's not attracted to him, he's disappointed but never pressures her--not for the rest of their lives. His presence in a late scene makes her unwillingness to give money to a writer's charity--"You have to work, it's the only way"--a little more complicated. But Kato's character is an exception among the other men in her life who often seem great at first but end up either casting her aside or abusing her.



Naruse adapted several of Hayashi's books to film so it's natural he would eventually adapt her autobiography. It doesn't have some of the bigger emotional moments and scope of the much better regarded Ukigumo (also starring Takamine) but A Wanderer's Notebook is pretty good.

The danger in diagnosing the problems in any relationship is that there are inevitably so many unseen complicating factors. But in the films of Mikio Naruse, you can be sure money is a big part of it, as it is in his 1956 film A Wife's Heart (妻の心). The tale of a woman who finds herself suddenly dissatisfied in a previously contented marriage, it could be called a retread of Naruse's better, and better known, film Meshi. But a Wife's Heart is a little more complicated and a little gentler. Filled with good performances, it's another showcase for Naruse's talent for subtly sewing drama and relationships through editing and composition.



Hideko Takamine plays Kiyoko, a young woman whose husband, Shinji (Keiju Kobayashi), inherited a convenience store from his mother (Eiko Miyoshi) and the three of them now live in a nice house behind the store. Shinji inherited the property despite being the younger brother of Zenichi (Minoru Chiaki) who left home to work for a company. But when Zenichi's wife and child come to stay for a visit, Kiyoko and Shinji are surprised when Zenichi joins them and the whole family ends up staying indefinitely.



Kiyoko and Shinji are in the early stages of opening a cafe. Kiyoko goes to a good friend whose brother Kiyoko arranges to meet with, a bank manager named Kenkichi played by none other than Toshiro Mifune.



I think this is the first time I've seen Mifune in a Naruse movie and he sure sticks out. I suddenly found myself noticing how extraordinarily deep his voice his, how physically large he is, things I just take for granted when I see him in Kurosawa films. His part isn't so big in this movie but it's crucial. He happily loans Kiyoko money for the cafe and daily starts to get his lunch at the cafe where Kiyoko's learning to cook and wait tables. Meanwhile, Zenichi is suddenly asking for a loan from Shinji to start his own cafe on the other side of town and their mother is pressuring Shinji to grant it. With all the stress he's under, Shinji starts to spend more and more time drinking with a couple geisha.



It's subtly indicated that Kiyoko has a better head for finances than her husband--he has a tendency to go to her advice and both use rhetorical gymnastics to get around acknowledging the fact that the wife is telling the husband what to do with the money. Rather than anyone ever directly stating it, it's clear Kiyoko is drawn to the bigger than life, happy and confident bank manager over her insecure and malleable husband. Like Meshi, it's clear that the wife's strength is more responsible for holding up the family than the husband's.



Aside from one scene involving a suicide, the film isn't as dark as Meshi, or most of Naruse's films. A Wife's Heart is less about the feeling that an unstoppable doom is descending and more about the mysteries of paths not taken and the effects of unexpected complications. It's exciting seeing Mifune and Takamine together, I would have liked to have seen them paired in more movies.