Villon's Wife
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Takako Matsu, Ryoko Hirosue Director: Kichitaro Negishi Category: IIB (Japanese)
The 15th-century French poet in the film's title, famed as much for his literary genius as his troubled private life, is an apt symbol for both Japanese author Osamu Dazai (1909-1948) and the male protagonist of his autobiographical 1947 short story upon which this award-winning 2009 film is based. Director Kichitaro Negishi skilfully avoids the subject's potential for melodrama in this finely etched, character-driven tale exploring the explosive mix of love and genius when one party is prone to self-destruction and the other to self-sacrifice.
There is an immediacy to the narrative set in the time and place where it was originally composed, the psychological and physical ruins of Tokyo a year after Japan's defeat in the second world war. It is here that 30-year-old writer Otani (Tadanobu Asano, above right) has achieved a degree of literary fame that has done nothing to quell his suicidal inner demons. But as fascinating as Otani's character may be, from his creative spark to drunken bouts and string of female conquests, he is not this work's titular personage. Rather, it is his wife Sachi (Takako Matsu), the 26-year-old mother of Otani's child, who takes centre stage.
On the surface, she is not unlike the myriad of long-suffering spouses who were a staple of post-war Japanese cinema. True to form, she is loyal, hard-working, and with a seeming endless capacity for self-humiliation when it comes to saving her wayward man. But in the course of the film's nearly two-hour running time, Sachi subtly grows from passive partner to the dominant personality. This is achieved not via overwrought histrionics or dramatic plot transmutations, but through delicate shadings and understated shifts. Sachi is the same steadfast wife from start to end, but it is clear that on a more fundamental level she has moved on.
Equally laudable is director and scriptwriter Yozo Tanaka bringing the protagonists' inner emotional states to the fore without a hackneyed dependence on voice-over narration and a manipulative background score. In this regard, it is a happy meeting of a literate script with perfect casting that encompasses both leads and supporting players.
The down-to-earth couple (Shigeru Muroi and Masato Ibu) who run the tavern frequented and once robbed by Otani, and where Sachi achieves economic independence as a scintillating waitress, might have stepped out of a Yasujiro Ozu picture. The lawyer (Shinichi Tsutsumi) whose complicated history with Sachi is a factor in her spiritual liberation; and the young labourer (Satoshi Tsumabuki, above left) who starts out a fan of Otani's writing only to fall in love with his wife, add richness and texture to this look at late 1940s Tokyo society. Relatively flamboyant, though again in a manner totally in keeping with Otani's universe, is the alcoholic sweetheart (Ryoko Hirosue) more than willing to join him in a love suicide.
Most important of all is the chemistry between Sachi and Otani. As embodied by Asano, one of Japan's quirkier stars, Otani is believable as a self-absorbed charmer aware of the pain he inflicts and full of egocentric self-reproach.
As luminously portrayed by Matsu, the concept of 'self' hardly seems to be a part of Sachi's make-up yet she possesses a firmer grasp of life and love than poets who merely write about such abstractions.
Villon's Wife opens today
