Kafuku (zenpen) / Learn from Experience I

Mikio Naruse: 禍福 前篇 / Kafuku (kohen) / Learn from Experience II. The reconciliation of the two wronged women over the baby. Takako Irie (as the traditional Toyomi Funada) and Chieko Takehisa (as the modern Yurie Mayama). 

禍福 前篇 / [Imparare dall’esperienza, parte I] / Les Vicissitudes de la vie I.

    JP (Empire of Japan) 1937. Prod.: P.C.L.

    Director: Mikio Naruse. Sog.: by the Kan Kikuchi’s novel. Scen.: Iwasaki Fumitaka. F.: Mitsuo Miura – b&w. Scgf.: Takeo Kita. Mus.: Takio Niki (part 1). Int.: Takako Irie (Toyomi Funada), Minoru Takada (Shintaro Minagawa), Sadao Maruyama (Shintaro’s father), Yuriko Hanabusa (Shintaro’s mother), Setsuko Horikoshi (Setsuko), Chieko Takehisa (Yurie Mayama), Yumeko Aizome (Michiko Takizawa), Heihachiro Ogawa (Tatsuo Hayakawa).

    Chopin: Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 in E-Flat major (1830). n.c.

    "The Isle of Capri" comp.+lyr. Wilhelm Grosz (1934). n.c.

    78 min

    Not released in Finland.

    35 mm print from NFAJ National Film Archive of Japan.

    Courtesy of Toho.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Sorrow and Passion: Pre-War Mikio Naruse.

    Viewed with e-subtitles in English and Italian at Cinema Jolly, 23 June 2025.

Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström (Bologna 2025): "Originally screened in two separate episodes, this was the last film to be released by P.C.L. before it merged with J.O. Studio to form Toho. It was based on a novel by Kan Kikuchi (1888–1948), a popular author and playwright whose work spawned numerous film adaptations and who was to serve as wartime president of another film studio, Daiei."

"A big box-office success in its day, this is another underrated work, superbly acted by all. In the wake of Nyonin aishu, the film reunited Naruse with cinematographer Mitsuo Miura and star Takako Irie, who gives a blistering performance in a role that again anticipates the feminism of Naruse’s postwar work. Irie plays Toyomi, who yields to the advances of aspiring diplomat Shintaro (Minoru Takada) when he promises to marry her, and becomes pregnant with his child, only to see him marry another woman. The narrative has parallels with Naruse’s silent Nasanu naka (No Blood Relations, 1932) as a kind of haha-mono (a popular genre focused on maternal love and suffering). The troubling resolution of the story suggests the political tensions of the era, at a time of growing conservatism in a Japan increasingly influenced by militarist ideology."

"At the time, “Kinema Junpo” critic Junichiro Tomoda praised the psychological perception in the depiction of a man fallen in love, but complained that Naruse was “unsuitable as a director of this kind of material and failed to bring power and emotion to every scene.” More recently, however, Tetsuya Hirano has praised the film as “well-paced and directed with a fluid touch”. Like Otome gokoro sannin shimai, the film contains some alluring location footage of pre-war Tokyo, including the Ueno and Ginza districts."

"In the wake of Kafuku, Naruse hoped to adapt Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country (Yukiguni), which had been published in volume form earlier in 1937. Regrettably this project never came to fruition, though the novel was filmed two decades later by Shiro Toyoda." Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström (Bologna 2025)

AA: Mikio Naruse's Kafuku (zenpen) is the first part of a story about a young diplomat with a bright future, Shintaro (Minoru Takada), who has promised to marry a traditional young lady, Toyomi (Takako Irie) who after a night of love is pregnant with their baby. But Shintaro's father is in catastrophic financial straits, and Shintaro is expected to marry an even richer woman, Yurie (Chieko Takehisa) to save the family fortune. The father even plans harakiri if Shintaro does not obey. The spineless Shintaro starts to resign to a gloomy future of an arranged marriage when he accidentally meets a fantastic young woman on horseback. It is Yurie. It does not look like the end of the world anymore. But Shintano, consequent in his spineless manner, fails to tell Toyomi. This is melodrama, about wronged women, men without character, babies out of wedlock, tears falling like rain. Melodrama also in the literal sense that music plays a big role: Romantic standards, the topical Capri tango hit by Will Grosz, easy listening jazz, Chopin's "Nocturne in E-flat major Op. 9 no. 2". Women's dreams bring forth tears. "You played with my body and soul. I feel like dying". This is a story between two ages, tradition (Toyomi) and modernity (Yurie), the country and the city.

I saw the first part of the movie in the morning screening and failed to catch the second part scheduled for the evening. According to sources it tells about the friendship of the two wronged women, Toyomi and Yurie, and their commitment to the baby (see photo above).

The print looks like a blow-up from 16 mm, clean and sober at that.