SHE WAS LIKE A WILD CHRYSANTHEMUM (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1955)

A tale of young love, like The Girl I Loved from nine years earlier, but even more pure and heartrending. The film is comprised mostly of the flashbacks of an elderly Masao (played by Chishu Ryu) as he visits the village of his youth, but by the end there are some ambiguous shifts in point of view. In either case, the flashbacks scenes are framed by a fixed white iris shot (it doesn't move in or out). Five years later, Truffaut would use irises in Shoot the Piano Player as a playful homage to silent film. Here though, the effect is more of the viewer piercing Masao's soul through memory-flooded eyes.

Per normal, Kinoshita is working with a simple narrative. Masao's flashbacks tell the story of the shared love between his 15-year-old self and Tamiko, his 17-year-old cousin who lives with his family. Everyone seems to know about and disapprove of their love; Masao and Tamiko even try to deny it, but silently they gesture toward a different truth.

Masao's mother has always been conflicted about the relationship between the young cousins and eventually decides to speed up Masao's departure for school, so as to break up any romance. While he's gone, Tamiko is forced home by a relentlessly unpleasant sister-in-law. There, she finds herself in an arranged marriage and becomes depressed. Masao's mother seals Tamiko's dark fate by telling her that there is absolutely no chance she would ever allow a relationship between the cousins.

But all that comes after the beautiful centerpiece of the film. Masao's mother allows the two a rare day working in the fields together. The cousins come closest to articulating their love here when they pick flowers that represent one another. Tamiko is like wild chrysanthemum (She asks "why?" to which Masao replies that he does now know) and Masao like a bellflower.

So often Kinoshita seems to just film nature and by chance capture the human lives and drama that pass through it. He seems to find the perfect amount of wind to gently rustle the flowers and wheat so that we're left with the resonant feeling of souls stirring beneath the empty words that society forces out of us.

THE GIRL I LOVED (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1946)

Jingo is home from the war and expects the girl he loves to be waiting for him and his proposal. The girl is Yoshiko, who was abandoned as a baby before her mother's suicide and adopted by Jingo's family. She, in fact, did not wait for him, having apparently fallen in love with Mr. Noda. Noda is a veteran of the war who somewhat embarrassingly walks with a limp, but plays the violin and reads, while the townspeople play the harmonica and appear to be illiterate.

The film teases us with the possibility of romance between the quasi-siblings, reveals Yoshiko's plans to marry Mr. Noda, and, at the end, leaves us wondering if she truly has no feelings for Jingo and if he truly accepts the role of brother (-in-law). In my reading, no and no. Her preference for Noda over Jingo is not because the latter is too much of a brother, but because the former is an outsider in the village like herself. This connection was fostered through circumstance, but with Jingo's return, Yoshiko's feelings are ambiguous, like her identification with two mothers- one living and one dead.

The theme of outsiders in an insular village reappeared years later in A Legend or Was It? and it's interesting to compare the two. For the most part, the later film isn't sympathetic towards its villagers who come across as stereotypically provincial and irrational. Here, Kinoshita shows more of a humanist touch and one senses that he loves or at least respects his characters. He emphasizes the differences between the educated Mr. Noda and farmers like Jingo, but also their shared qualities. Mr. Noda points out how war gives their lives urgency, underscoring the fact that he simply got to begin living his before Jingo. But then we're shown Noda, in a distinct low-angle shot, playing violin for a seated circle of confused and bored boys used to the harmonica and folk songs. Tellingly, Yoshiko is seated among them with Jingo, and the two walk out on the performance to discuss his secret. But Jingo is too embarrassed to reveal his love now, and too good a person to ruin the happiness of others, so he returns home, where, without any conviction, he tells his mother that they need to embrace Yoshiko's marriage.

Once again, Kinoshita demonstrates his ability to capture the poetic beauty of wherever he films. The pastures of The Girl I Loved lend an innocence to the film that makes the war something of a distant memory. There is a transcendent shot of Yoshiko blissfully running through the pasture that is later echoed when Jingo chases his quasi-brother through the fields in tears. Also memorable is a rapid succession of cuts between Yoshiko applying lipstick and her mother's dress flowing in the wind, which now seems quite Kinoshita-esque. Overall, the film is simplistic in its story, but memorable for its poetic style and ambiguity.

A LEGEND OR WAS IT? and WOMAN (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1963 and 1948)

My introduction to the world of Keisuke Kinoshita and two films I won't soon forget. A Legend or Was It? and Woman reveal a director relatively unconcerned with original or complex stories. Instead, Kinoshita takes two simple premises and shows his incredible ability to ratchet up the melodrama and insanity. Marked by a frenetic camera with intense close-ups and quick cuts, these films never really let up once the action is set in motion.

And that takes no time at all. In my limited repository of film knowledge, A Legend or Was It?, the superior of the two discussed here, might be comparable to something by Samuel Fuller, like 40 Guns. In 1945, a family (the eldest brother and sister shown above) escapes from Tokyo during the war to a secluded, insular village in the mountains. The village is safe geographically, but has felt the effects of war, relinquishing both men and food to the Japanese army. There is a mutual dislike between the new family, who find the townspeople hostile, and the townspeople, who seem to distrust outsiders from the city. The family does receive support from the mayor, whose son is set to marry their daughter Kieko. But when her brother, Hideyuki, who is returning from the war, meets the mayor's son, he recognizes him as a soldier he witnessed raping and killing innocents in China. Hideyuki tells Kieko, the wedding is off, and all hell breaks loose.

The two young woman at the center of the story- Kieko (Shima Iwashita) and Yuri (Mariko Kaga)-  dominate the film every time they appear on screen. They deliver amazing performances that propel their characters' vilification at the hands of the simple and pathetic men who surround them. Another  highlight is Kinoshita as an image-maker. The dynamic camerawork makes this melodrama quite a thriller. Kinoshita mixes intense close-ups with long shots that incorporate the beautiful landscape of the mountains the way great Westerns do. And lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the music, which I can only describe as if a drone artist appropriated carnival-type music (maybe like The Savage Young Taterbug?). It's bizarre and sometimes in tonal opposition to what's going on narratively, but it adds a distinct nightmarish quality to the film. This is really one of the best I've seen in some time.

Woman, though an inferior film, only added to my opinion of Kinoshita. The premise here is actually more bare-bones and the running time shorter (67 minutes). Toshiko, a dancer, gets asked by Tadashi, with whom she has a conflicted romantic history, to run away with him. Tadashi has just committed a highly publicized burglary and is already on the run. Toshiko at turns goes along with him and tries to ditch him.

Until an explosive conclusion, much of the film is just a back-and-forth psychological interrogation between the two, largely centered around whether Tadashi can really change his criminal ways (he can't). We're somewhat sympathetic because he says his problems all began when he returned from the war. Their interplay is engaging on a performance-level, but Kinoshita's formal inventiveness makes it extra noteworthy. The close-ups are even closer than those in A Legend or Was It?, as Kinoshita zeroes in on characters' mouths and teeth (alongside a peculiar interest in their feet). In the middle of dialogue, he will suddenly cut to shots of the sea (both of these films make good use of their location). And he uses some low-angle shots, especially during a musical performance, that are reminiscent of Orson Welles. Woman doesn't leave the same impression as A Legend or Was It?, but Kinoshita already strikes me as a filmmaker who struggles to make films that aren't worthwhile.