Taking a chance on this Radiance disc yielded a happy surprise, another Japanese drama filmed with deep feeling and visual assurance. Noboru Nakamura’s The Shape of Night tells a familiar story without sensationalism or ironic detachment. The theme is ‘the way of all flesh’ yet no moral code is imposed except that of humanistic common sense. The exploitation of women is cruel and destructive, and the the worst tragedy is the ruin of the human spirit.
Nakamura gives his film a stunningly colorful surface, but one not allowed to glamorize the proceedings. The storyline follows just a couple of characters, with a tight focus on the the factory girl played by Miyuki Kuwano. Her command of the screen matches that of any Hollywood leading lady.
We already know that Japanese genre pictures of the 1950s and ’60s took their content beyond the limits imposed on American films. The Shape of Night is never explicit with the details of prostitution, and its visuals include no nudity. Yet it is more honestly frank than any U.S. film with a Production Code seal; it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t made decades later.
Told partly in flashbacks is the story of Yoshie (Miyuki Kuwano), a bright and spirited factory girl. By day she makes colored neon tubes, and to earn extra money she takes a hostess job helping out in a small club. There she becomes easy prey for Eiji (Mikijiro Hira), a handsome young gentleman who wins her over the moment she serves him a drink. Everything Eiji tells Yoshie is a lie. He’s not a businessman but an entry-level Yakuza. It’s no contest, as the naïve Yoshie remains in love with Eiji even after he’s date raped-her and asked her for loans. By steps, he tricks her into sleeping with other men for money. When he asks her to walk the streets she rebels and goes home. A day later, she’s tricked into walking into a roomful of Eiji’s Yakuza colleagues — to be taught a lesson.
Yoshie may be a fool, but there are millions of innocents like her, ready pawns to be exploited by a guy who knows how to gain a young woman’s trust. (God help lonely girls on the Internet.) The woman who runs the club doesn’t tip Yoshie to the fact that Eiji is connected — she probably already pays protection money to the gangsters. Where exactly was Yoshie supposed to get the lowdown on the traps that await her?
Toshidi Gondo’s screenplay makes the path into degradation entirely logical, and the excellent actress Kuwano brings a feeling of truth to the tale. The hapless Yoshie is trusting and faithful in her way. Eiji does abuse her at times, but he doesn’t threaten her outright, as do his Yakuza brothers. Yoshie chooses to stay with Eiji even though she hates him, and above all hates herself. Once a person loses self-esteem, other forces come into play. Yoshie loses her grip on her own personality.
Yoshie goes home only once. Her parents can guess that she’s ‘been with a man’ but mainly complain that she’s no longer bringing home money. Yoshie pushes away her loving little brother, expressing her new self-image as unclean. She is not able to make satisfactory connections elsewhere. The only other streetwalker Yoshie talks to is Keiko (Yoshiko Hiromura), who tells her how to behave when arrested, and who says she’s saving up for an escape to another life.
The riskiest contact is Hiroshio Fujii (Keisuke Sonoi), a repeat customer who wants Yoshie to run away with him. That would be a great idea were it not for the underworld’s known ability to find people. But it’s not an easy fix. For a guy who frequent prostitutes, Fujii talks too much in moral terms. He has little patience for Yoshie’s doubts and hesitation — how can she be so unappreciative of his great sacrifice to save her? The last thing she needs is another guy who wants to control her life.
We also understand Yoshie’s dark mood when she meets up with a girlfriend from the neon factory, who is now married and has a family, albeit with little money. Fujii takes it for granted that Yoshie ‘is like other good women’ and wants the same exact thing.
In other words, this insightful drama from ’60s Japan is more feminist than anything that Hollywood muster. Typical ‘adult’ fare around this time were insipid dramas and inane comedies that pigeonholed women as hysterical ninnies.
Facing its subject matter in non-melodramatic terms, The Shape of Night makes the tragedy of Yoshie seem inevitable. In a matter of weeks she goes from a carefree young woman to someone traumatized by gang rape, clutching for security to the man who has ruined her life. Yoshie gets the worst of a male crime syndicate that indeed considers women as animals for pleasure and profit. Eiji is himself a slave to the Yakuza hierarchy, and maintains his illusion of virility by dominating Yoshie.
But director Nakamura lets the relationship develop further. Eiji suffers a knife-fight injury that reverses the sexual dynamic of their relationship. It is almost disturbing when Eiji begins attending to Yoshie’s needs. The debased ‘couple’ seem equally invested in a cultural system of male dominance. Eiji’s personality shift is the one thing Yoshie can’t take — she had better rapport with the brute who beat her and pimped her out.
We’ve all seen shows aiming to shock with images of sleazy grit and filth. The Shape of Night goes in a different direction. Eiji and Yoshie don’t live a high life, but neither are they in the gutter. Standing at a store window, Yoshie confides to Keiko that there is so much she wants to buy. Yoshie never sees more of the world than a few crowded flesh-market streets. We stay inside her world of cold streets and neon signs. Keiko tells Yoshie that getting out and ‘running away to where nobody will find me’ is the only answer, because staying on the street will soon turn into pure hell, one way or another. For Yoshie that time comes when she is no longer capable of making choices for herself, and can no longer recognize her own personality.
