1965: Story of a Prostitute

Story of a Prostitute (1965, Suzuki) 8/10

On its surface Seijun Suzuki's 1965 film Story of a Prostitute appears to be little more than a quasi-Romeo and Juliet story of two torn lovers doomed to spend their lifetimes unable to openly love one another. Yet, there is something deeper here within Suzuki's film. This less a film about romance and more about death.

The setting is World War II China. The Japanese army are slowly beginning to lose their grip on the war. Harumi (Yumiko Nagawa) is a young women who has volunteered to work as a "comfort woman": utilizing her body as a service for the troops. Her reasons for participating in such a project is to spite a former upper-class lover, who she believes will be eternally shamed for failing to marry her. This initial action sets-up a key characteristic of Harumi: she takes revenge out on others by using herself as the instrument. Quickly she and her fellow prostitutes become accustomed to the dehumanizing nature of their labour. The men are savage and cruel, none moreso than Narita (Isao Tamagawa) the commanding officer of the local batallion who personally selects her to fulfill his debased sexual desires.

Their first intimate encounter is sadistic and distasteful, as the tyrannical Narita wields his authority by raping Harumi. His rank and sex dictate their encounters as he berates and abuses her for her choice of profession. He attempts to stress his potence by ritualistically fondling his sword, yet within him lies a feeble and corrupt creature. When Narita verbally abuses her, she demands him to curb his language as all officers are to speak in the manner of the Emperor. His reaction is swift and cruel: as he savagely physically abuses her before continuing his pattern of verbal, sexual and emotional assault.

Desperate to punish Narita for his response to her, Harumi begins to court his straightlaced and literate orderly Private Mikami (Tamio Kawachi). He resists her lure. Honour and upholding the conventions of the Japanese military hierarchy persuades him to resist her advances. He is the perfect military man: obedient, dehumanized and robotic. It is no surprise that Kawachi plays him with so little emotion and movement as the man he is playing is a living corpse.

About twenty-five minutes into the film, there is a beautiful shot in which Yumiko Nagawa stares in-between the bedposts realizing her trapped position. She is a prisoner to her bed and will never be able to socially mobilize herself away from that position. Mikami and Harumi briefly become secret lovers, but soon Mikami tries to revert back to their original status as unattached human beings.This static notion of status is another common theme in the film. Characters often try to change their fate, but more often than not, they become relegated to their position and demote themselves back to their rank. This is true in the characters relation to death.

Death is all-around Story of a Prostitute. It is on the battlefields and in the bedrooms. No-one can escape it. Mikami is already dead emotionally and spiritually. Harumi is rapidly dying and hopes to use her potential lover to save her: to allow her to live once more. The problem is Mikami is afraid to live. It is revealed that he was once an officer, but was soon relegated to the status of a private for disobedience. Now he is grown so disenchanted with the army and life in general that he barely steps out of line.He tries to breathe new possibilities into his fleeting life by reading philosophy by Diderot, but is soon absurdly declared a communist by his commanding officers. The army will not tolerate such liberal thought that strays from their rigid ideals. Thus rigor mortis begins to set-in on Mikami's life.

The battle between life and death is never more perverse than when Mikami is wounded in a trench. Dying in the mud, his fellow soldiers gather his machine gun and leave him to perish. Only Harumi is willing to save Mikami from certain death. Their capture by a Chinese faction promises life and the hope for a fruitful relationship to blossom. Yet, Mikami resists. The Japanese military code insists it is better to die rather than capture. Any escape back to the Japanese front will result in certain death via a court-martial. Thus Mikami is in a Catch-22 situation: to disobey the tattered codes of his imperialist matters or to return to the fold and certain death. Tired of the arbitrary authoritarianism within their ranks,Uno (Kentaro Kaji), a former fellow soldier in his battalion has already fled to the Chinese borders. He can promise Mikami freedom, but again he resists. Thus, Suzuki brings up a shot similar to that in his own Gate of Flesh made a year earlier. In that film, there is a brief glance at an American flag, which is encouraged to be spat upon; in this film there is the opposite, as a Chinese flag is shown as a diametric opposing force to Japanese imperialism, which should be spat upon.



Story of a Prostitute is the middle-piece in Suzuki's development from the Technicolor jazz-pop of Gate of Flesh to the harsh anti-Fascism of Fighting Elegy. As in Gate of Flesh, Story of a Prostitute demonstrates the power available to women in their sex. In Gate of Flesh, the prostitutes use sex to purify and maintain order within their society; in Story of a Prostitute sex (not rape) becomes a liberating force from tyranny and oppression. Harumi achieves liberation from the cruelties of Narita through sex and she hopes Mikami will too. Yet, he lacks the courage to fulfill his physical desires as he is repeatedly told the army's mantra to avoid wine and women, something his own officers fail to do. Unlike the surrealist flourishes of Gate of Flesh and Youth of the Beast, Suzuki demonstrates an emotional realism in Story of Prostitute that is gritty and painful. The scene in which Mikami and Harumi first consumate their relationship is beautiful as it is tragic as Mikami shivers and shakes upon his first sexual encounter; and later cries at the thought of what has just happened.

The harsh black and white widescreen cinematography, powerful acting (particularly by Yumiko Nagawa), tense script and rounded characterizations give this film a gritty authenticity and focus often lacking in Suzuki's films. Here the story is more important than the image. This most likely has to do with the fact Suzuki was an ardent fan of the novel the film is based upon, unlike his genre-bending gangster flicks that were culled from studio scripts that he had little or no interest in. That's not to say that Suzuki's sense of style is absent from this picture: on the contrary it is perhaps one of his most beautiful pictures in terms of visuals as he maximizes the full width of widescreen cinematography with Bergman-esque compositions, Wajda-style fluid tracking shots, swinging camera movements and stylized freeze-frames and slow-motion shots.

Even the film's moments of eroticism are done in a tasteful and artful manner that stresses the wholeness of sex within a loving relationship, rather than the rapid-fire exploitation shown in contemporary Hollywood films. Suzuki's cinematic interests here seem to once more be widespread: the opening shot is highly reminiscent of Kurosawa's Yojimbo as Harumi's lone warrior figure roams the desolate landscape; while Suzuki's heroine Harumi would not be out of place in a film by Sirk or Bergman.

At the film's stunning conclusion, Harumi's fellow prostitutes remark it is more cowardly to die and more difficult to live. This is the central mantra of Suzuki's film. War itself accomplishes nothing and its particpants achieve nothing but stagnating life itself. The scene in which Mikami recites the difference between a cowardly soldier and a courageous one perfectly sums up Suzuki's anti-war notions. Bravery and courage are not demonstrated by blindly following orders and participating in crazy feats; they are shown by acting against a corrupt authority and through living what little life we are given to the fullest.

Story of a Prostitute is available through Criterion

Other Seijun Suzuki Films Reviewed:
Youth of the Beast (1963) 7/10

Copyright 2006 8 ½ Cinematheque.