Dir: Kobayashi Masaki
Year: 1957
Cast:
Killer Jo: Nakadai Tatsuya
Nishida: Watanabe Fumio
Shizuko: Arima Ineko
Kin: Seiji Miyaguchi
The landlord: Yamada Isuzu
Atsugi Airbase
Years before his most celebrated films, namely The Human Condition (「人間の条件」) films, Harakiri (「切腹」) and Kaidan (「怪談」), came Kobayashi’s Black River (「黒い川)」. Set in the immediate Japanese post-war milieu of poverty, social inequality, rebuilding and the American occupation, Black River is a film noirish jaunt around the world sitting just outside the American Naval Air Facility at Atsugi in Kanagawa prefecture.
The landlord shows Nishida around
The film revolves around a fresh faced and, in his own words, politically neutral student named Nishida who had come to a shanty town outside of the airbase to go to study. On his first visit to his new lodgings he meets a colorful bunch of neighbors led by, whom the landlord, an unscrupulous woman, calls a “communist,” Kin, who is played by Miyaguchi Seiji. Miyaguchi Seiji is probably most well known to Western audiences as the spectular swordsmen Kyuzo in Kurosawa’s 七人の侍(Seven Samurai). The place Nishida comes to inhabit is the poster-palace for post-war squalor: holes in the walls, a rusting tin roof, cramped quarters and a merciless landlord who demands payment constantly. He nevertheless takes up his studies in the heap despite his less than fortunate circumstances.
Shizuko
The local thug leader, Killer Joe, played convincingly by Nakadai, hatches a plan as he scopes a priceless beauty, Shizuko, played by the stunning Arima Ineko, whom he has been watching for sometime as goes by everyday walking with her white purse and white umbrella down the main drag towards the train station. She is a waitress at a local restaurant/cafe and much like a lotus flower born out of the mud, the cleanliness of her character is in stark contrast to both Joe and his group of thugs as well as the characters whom live near Nishida; himself an individual that stands out as an odd fit for such a seedy place. Its not long until these two rather unspoiled characters attract each others’ attention and seem on the verge of starting a romantic relationship when Nishida invites Shizuko to his hovel after a chance encounter on the street. Which is when, of course, everything begins to go wrong.
Shizuko and Nishida
The villain, Killer Joe, decides to stage an abduction with the help of his cronies. On her way home his goons capture Shizuko only to be defeated at the hands of Killer Joe, who just happens to be conveniently waiting in the wings to come to her rescue. Soon after, in fact right then and there, he proceeds to complete the victimization of Shizuko by raping her. The next day she shows up at Joe’s hangout and asks him to marry him so she can avoid the shame of being set upon by him. He tells her that in essence his crime was one of love and passion for her though he rejects the idea of marriage. In the midst of her grief she doesn’t see Joe’s duplicity and is taken in by him, mistaking his abusive nature as a sign of his passion for her.
Joe to the rescue
Nishida who after being “stood up” by Shizuko, now sees her around town with quite a different aura surrounding her. Her character now seems to blend in with the seedy scene whereas Nishida still retains some of his “innocent” light. She is becoming a “fallen” women as a result of Joe’s actions. Yet she hasn’t completely fallen and still holds a candle for Nishida who is somewhat childishly suspicious of her, not seeing that something has happened to her emotionally. Here a love triangle of sorts develops between Joe, Nishida and Shizuko. Nishida and Shizuko are victimized by Joe who is a representative of the hired thugs of the bureaucracy at the time and their struggle against the poor in the name of “progress”.
Nishida confronts Shizuko
While he and Nishida begin their struggle for Shizuko, Joe goes about the business of readying the shanty in which Nishida and the others live for demolition. Joe has the tenets illegally evicted, forging documents and telling them that they will have running water and other amenities in return for their signatures. All of this is done to make way for new development in the area. For all of his learning, Nishida plays the role of the impotent man being caught in Joe’s grip knowing that he can prevent neither the shanty from being destroyed nor Shizuko’s fall into the seedy undercurrent of the town. Joe goes so far to have a crony steal Nishida’s belongings, even wearing Nishida’s watch in his presence.
Kin
The reality of being caught on the lower rung of the social ladder in post-war Japan is portrayed by the individuals living alongside Nishida. Kin, the so-called communist, represents the pre-war Japan that revolved around individual sacrifice for the good of the community as well as the post-war radical left in the way he tries to organize the tenants against Joe’s plans. The voice of the masses, he is both the struggling poorer class of Japan in the pre-war and war years as well as the inheritor of post-war Japan’s debts wrapped up in one. He is the only character in the film that vocalizes any disillusionment in the occupation and the position of Japan after the war. Ultimately, no one can stop Joe’s scheming on behalf of the landlord and a local businessman; the shanty will be torn down setting the stage for a final showdown of sorts between Joe and Nishida.
Joe shocks Shizuko
The night of the demolition, Joe decides to have a little party and invites Nishida over for drinks. Knowing Joe’s intentions as well as her own, Shizuko pleads Nishida to not go. She tells Nishida that she has been tricked by Joe. Joe gave her back the purse and umbrella which were “stolen” during her abduction. This explains everything to her. Joe is so confident in his control over her that he doesn’t fear reprisal whatsoever. The undertones of her impeding revenge cannot be ignored as she explains, “I have to get rid of the part of Joe that is still inside me.” She decides to take things into her own hands and Nishida cannot help; it is her redemption on the line and she needs finish this for herself.
Things get complicated
So what does Nishida do? He goes to the party. At this point he starts to exert himself and stand up to Joe, going so far as to accuse him of being corrupt. He also tells Joe to share the money he got from the demoliton sending one of Joe’s thug’s lunging after him. Nishida scuffles with him for bit and but everything stops when Shizuko enters the room. Things get strange from here. The thugs leave to demolish the slum leaving only four remaining: Joe, Shizuko, Nishida and… Joe’s other girlfriend, Sachiko. Apparently, the love triangle is now an impromptu love square. Odd to say the least as Sachiko puts up with his affair with Shizuko and is in turn brutalized in the same fashion.
Shizuko taunts Joe
After a bizarre mock auction in which Shizuko offers herself as well as her “blood stained umbrella” to the highest bidder, much to Joe’s chagrin, the four go down to the local bar to have drinks. Shizuko gets Joe inebriated in order to get him ready to make her move. Nishida watches intently for her to act and in the meantime is little more than a wall to lean on for Sachiko. After some quarreling between the two, Shizuko decides to move them outside in order to get Joe away from Nishida. They stumble down the dirt road, Shizuko and Joe ahead with Nishida and the now gibbering and obviously jealous Sachiko, following some length behind.
Joe's reaction
Now on walking across a bridge Nishida appears stone cold sober; dreadfully awaiting Shizuko’s move. A U.S. military truck roars by them. Joe is twirling the umbrella in his hands not even slightly aware of what is about to take place. Another truck speeds past. Shizuko turns back to Nishida, warning him with a pained look in her face to stop following her. Shizuko embraces Joe on the side of the road. Seeing a truck coming fast, Nishida runs for her. Its too late though. She makes her move and releases herself of Joe’s taint though it changes nothing. Nishida tries to console her but in seeing Joe on the ground dead she realizes she has completely fallen. She dashes away as fast as she can into the night.
Watching Arima’s character devolve throughout the course of the film is sad and yet, strangely seductive. Her character becomes far more sultry than the original Shizuko, which is perhaps a commentary on the reality of Japanese women living in “base towns” at the time; as we find out the reality is much less pretty than it looks. She is stuck where she is and left to her own devices. Nishida can barely stick up for himself, let alone her. Its interesting that the only way for her to break free of the downward spiral is to kill Joe herself and leave Nishida behind; symbolically, a decidedly nihilist view of post-war Japan. Nakadai’s character is, as most of Nakadai’s villians, evil to the bone. He doesn’t care about anything but himself, his wants and his money. Nakadai is on top of his game here; Joe is a sociopathic pawn of anyone who will pay him.
This film is also in part a criticism of post-war Japan as caught up in its own redevelopment to the neglect of its people and its soul. Joe’s relationship with business and the government’s inaction to stop the tenents being forcefully evicted is direct critique of both the old way of doing things under the Imperial seal as well as the “new” way of doing things under the post-war governments of Kishi and the LDP. The new way which was in many instances, same as the old way; Class A war criminals and all. As mentioned before the distinctly critical voice of Kin in the film serves as a mouthpiece for the director and in a sense the Japanese socialist movement of the ’50′s, though for that matter Kin’s “grassroots activism” and organizing accomplish nothing. This theme of the emasculated post-war Japanese male is not an uncommon one, but what makes Nishida peculiar is that he is a student and in a sense a symbol of the progressive movement along with Kin. It is this failure to successfully fight back against the corruption that makes Black River such a pessimistic view of Japan’s future from the ’50′s onward.
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