The Berlinale begins! Okay, technically the Berlinale is over, but for this blog, it is the beginning. This time, I will be covering it myself, just like the 2009 version, while Pixelmatsch will blog only the films that I didn’t see. Overall, the beginning of the Berlinale was very tedious; we couldn’t get tickets for some of the films we really wanted to see (namely “Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Snowpiercer”), but as soon as it began, we saw the promise of an exceptionally good Berlinale, which it was until today.
As always, the first days started slowly and there was a huge run on the tickets, so we only saw one older film on the first day. It seems to be a pattern: Every Berlinale (out of two) I have been to started with a fantastic Japanese film, incidentally my favorite of the entire festival.
Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro
Japan 1938, Mikio Naruse, 88’
Jiro and Toyo are a popular artist couple who who grew together, Jiro studied shinnai singing with Toyo’s mother and Toyo is an expert shamisen player. Not only are they made for each other on stage, of course they are also in love. However, true to any romantic comedy, they have a hard time showing this love and misunderstandings pile up. He feels insecure about her love for him and lashes out on her, while she refuses to put up with his jealousy. Even though everybody is trying to help them get together, the two cannot stop getting into humorous arguments.
Death count: 0.
The film made me go onto Hulu as soon as I got home to see what Naruse movies they have to offer. Luckily, there is a whole 15 of them, but Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro is not amongst them. In fact, I am surprised how underrated this movie is. There are virtually no screenings of the film in the world, no way to get to it on home video (unless I am mistaken) and almost no reviews of the film out there. It appears nobody knows about the film.
I think this film is a masterpiece of repetitive humor. After the third time Jiro said “I think you played badly today”, a big part of the audience was laughing. Furthermore, the characters develop over the years shown, and the bittersweet ending was heart-wrenching, because we see Jiro finally maturing and making a thoroughly selfless decision. It’s so beautiful. This is an unpretentious little film, a perfect romantic comedy with sad undertones and an ultimately tragic ending. Words cannot describe how much this film was able to hit all the right buttons with me, but it certainly helped was the Jiro and Toyo were equals. They were of similar age, they had the same profession and finally, they fought on equal footing, with Toyo saying “no” and insisting on her own style whenever she wanted. For a Japanese film from the 1930s, that is quite something! The secret feminist in me is very happy with this film.
On a side note, you can see “Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro” on Youtube, albeit in absolutely terrible quality. Sadly it does not do justice to Naruse’s soft touch at all, so I am hoping for better copies to show up.
God, it’s so much fun and almost a bit nostalgic to read your blog posts! (How will it be in ten years then?)
I’m really surprised this film is so underrated. Its qualities are so obvious and it is so extremely funny! Sometimes I wonder if comedies tend to be more underrated with renowned film critics – I mean, how can you rate Tokyo Monogatari over Ohayô? I read short descriptions of some of Naruse’s other movies and I’m really intrigued in what else he has done.
The ending was so good. It made so much sense and gave the movie and its characters additional awesomeness!
The ending was surprisingly good! Honestly I was afraid it would turn out differently hahaha. I doubt that Naruse’s other movies are this funny, most likely they are more like “Tokyo Monogatari” in comparison to “Ohayo”, but I am still interested.
Speaking of “Ohayo”, did you ever see “I was born, but…”, the movie it is loosely based on?
Ah, in 10 years. Well in 2 years my blog will be 10 years old, and I am afraid to look at my first blog postings hahaha.