Sincerity (Magokoro)

[Dan Sallitt]

A previous thread on this film is now closed:

http://groups.google.com/group/naruseretro/browse_thread/thread/443017db30b38476

A really perplexing film, full of wonderful things but profoundly
unfulfilling in terms of structure. The first movement constructs a
detailed multi-perspective inquiry into the report cards of two school
friends, Nobuko (Etchan, very good) and Tomiko (Teruko Kato),
revealing in the process the friends' quite different personalities,
the conflict between Nobuko's tightly wound mother (Sachiko Murase)
and jock father (Minoru Takada), the absent father in Tomiko's home,
and sundry observations on the ethos of Japan's educational system in
1939. I was hoping that Naruse would stick to those report cards for
the entire film, but a plot kicks in when the girls learn that
Nobuko's father and Tomiko's mother (Takako Irie) were once in love.
The film here takes a turn toward the subjective perspective of
Tomiko, whose self-image wavers as she uncovers new facts about her
family history. Both sections, though, contain lots of sharp
behavioral detail from the children, with Nobuko's carefree/careless
nature deployed beautifully by Naruse to provide airy counterpoint to
the increasingly grave subject matter. As Tomiko's confusion takes
over the story, Naruse enters her state of mind in a long, dreamlike
passage of the former lovers meeting under the eyes of the children,
with Tomiko and her mother passing slowly and repeatedly through the
idyllic landscape that separates their rural town from the beach where
the mythologized reunion occurs.

Spoilers are coming...

But the final section of the film, usually Naruse's glory, goes in
strange directions. Nobuko's father's gift of a doll to Tomiko
precipitates an interfamily crisis that might have pulled together all
the film's character threads. But Tomiko, the film's central
character, is almost entirely dropped from the film's end game; and
the explosive gift of the doll is depicted without showing or
suggesting Nobuko's father's motivations, which are certainly
ambiguous. Instead, the focus of the climax is on rebuking Nobuko's
mother for her suspicions and her general demeanor, even though her
actions have contributed little to the crisis, and on the possible
restoration of her marriage via her acceptance of chastisement. Could
all this misdirection have something to do with Nobuko's father being
something of a symbol of Japanese military zeal (in that he is about
to be called up to service - he was introduced earlier lowering a
sword into an empty frame), and therefore not a valid subject for
criticism? It's hard to say. Naruse wrote the script, from a novel
by Yôjirô Ishizaka, who also provided subject matter for Shiro
Toyoda's excellent 1937 film YOUNG PEOPLE. The subtlety of the
dialogue suggests that he was engaged by the project, and the dramatic
fulfillment of narrative strands is generally Naruse's strong point.
I suspect foul play.