Tsuma yo bara no youni / Wife, Be Like a Rose!

Mikio Naruse: 妻よ薔薇のやうに / Tsuma yo bara no youni / Wife, Be Like a Rose! (JP 1935). Sachiko Chiba as Kimiko Yamamuto. Poster from IMDb.

Mikio Naruse: 妻よ薔薇のやうに / Tsuma yo bara no youni / Wife, Be Like a Rose! (JP 1935). Sachiko Chiba as Kimiko Yamamuto. Photo: Il Cinema Ritrovato.

妻よ薔薇のやうに / [Moglie, sii come una rosa] / Kimiko [U.S. 1937] / Ma femme, sois comme une rose / Frau, sei wie eine Rose!

    JP (Empire of Japan) 1935. Prod.: P.C.L.

    Director: Mikio Naruse. Sog.: by the pièce Futarizuma di Minoru Nakano. Scen.: Mikio Naruse. F.: Hiroshi Suzuki – b&w. M.: Koichi Iwashita. Scgf.: Kazuo Kubo. Mus.: Noboru Ito. Int.: Sachiko Chiba (Kimiko Yamamoto), Yuriko Hanabusa (Oyuki), Toshiko Ito (Etsuko), Setsuko Horikoshi (Shizuko), Chikako Hosokawa (Shingo’s wife), Sadao Maruyama (Shunsaku), Heihachiro Ogawa (Seiji), Kaoru Ito (Kenichi), Kamitari Fujiwara (Shingo).

    74 min

    Not released in Finland.

    35 mm print with English subtitles by Tadashi Shishido from Japan Foundation

    Courtesy of Toho.

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

    Introduced by Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström

    Viewed with e-subtitles in Italian at Cinema Jolly, 22 June 2025.

Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström (Bologna 2025): "This sparkling comic drama is the most famous of Naruse’s 1930s films, and became one of the very small number of pre-war Japanese films to have secured a commercial release abroad; it played in New York in 1937 under the title of Kimiko, to lukewarm reviews. In Japan, by contrast, it was hailed by the critics, among whom Matsuo Kishi, in “Kinema Junpo”, saluted it as “one of the greatest achievements not only of P.C.L., but also of the Japanese cinema as a whole”. It topped the magazine’s Best Ten critics’ poll for that year."

"The film was adapted from the first episode of Futarizuma (Two Wives), a three-part shinpa (melodramatic drama with a contemporary setting) play by Minoru Nakano (1901–73). It is a bittersweet account of the efforts of a young female office worker to reunite her lonely mother with the father who has left home and gone to live with another woman in the countryside. The contrast between Tokyo and rural Nagano Prefecture, and between the lifestyles of the different generations, is brought across vividly. Writing a couple of years after the film’s release, Kyoichi Otsuka praised “a formal beauty achieved through the pleasant harmony of sound and scene”, and noted that the film brought freshness to shinpa conventions by “touching on the true nature of the human heart”. It was, he concluded, “a triumph for Mikio Naruse and a triumph for the talkie”."

"With her cheerful, vivacious star persona, Sachiko Chiba (1911–93), who plays heroine Kimiko, was P.C.L.’s first big star. Having made an impression with her debut in Sakebu Ajia (Asia Cries Out, Tomu Uchida, 1933), for which P.C.L. recorded the sound, she had been headhunted by the company, and starred in P.C.L.’s first feature (Japan’s first musical), Ongaku kigeki: Horoyoi jinsei (Tipsy Life, Kimura Sotoji, 1933). She was to appear in several other Naruse films, including Uwasa no musume later the same year. In 1937, she married Naruse, though the couple were to divorce only three years later." Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström

AA: Mikio Naruse's Wife, Be Like a Rose! is the tale of the young Kimiko (Sachiko Chiba) about to get married with Seiji (Heihachiro Okawa).

The fates of three families are involved. Kimiko and her mother Etsuko (Toshiko Ito), a poet and a teacher. Seiji, whose father needs to meet Kimiko's father before he can accept the marriage. Shunsaku, Kimiko's absent father, with a new family in a mountain village with Oyuki, his new companion, and their two children.

The movie is divided into three parts: Tokyo, the mountain village and back to Tokyo.

Inspired by Sachiko Chiba, Naruse discovers a sparkling tone and a musical grace, a delicate and elegant flow to a complex story. In the character of Kimiko, one of the influences is Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night.

Starting with a city symphony montage of Tokyo, Naruse is happy to employ a wide array of cinematic means: tracking shots and panoramic shots, close-ups and long shots, and complex montages. It grows into an organic whole. The movie breathes cinematic life to the rhythm of its heroine Kimiko.

The main action is Kimiko's quest for her absent father, whose presence is needed for her marriage. Kimiko also still hopes to reunite her mother and father, and she criticizes her mother for having neglected her father, who then left them with the wanton geisha Oyuki, believed to be a gold-digger.

But in the mountain village Kimiko realizes that it is the other way around. Oyuki is the breadwinner of the new family, who supports not only Shunsako and their two children but sends also money to Etsuko and even saves money for Kimiko's wedding while neglecting her own daughter. The gold-digger is Shunsako in the literal sense of the word. He is an unsuccessful prospector in the mountains.

Oyuki is a good-hearted woman who displays more grandeur of the soul than anybody. The heart of the movie is the conversation between Oyuki and Kimiko. Kimiko now understands that a true love union exists between Oyuki and Shunsako. Etsuko and Shunsako are incompatible and always have been. They belong to different worlds.

Kimiko is a fascinating portrait of a young woman. She is a modern independent Tokyo lady who also wants to be a deferential traditional wife.

Men make fools of themselves. Uncle Shingo scares birds with his singing. Father Shunsako falls asleep during a kabuki dance performance. Kimiko and Seiji tease and chide each other on a basis of equality.

I sense in this movie an undercurrent of hidden matriarchy. Even a young modern woman like Kimiko may pursue traditional roles. But in reality she would be the one who pulls the strings – just like she already does.

Good contrast but soft outlines. A blow-up from 16 mm, but well made?