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Record of a Tenement Gentleman
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Wikipedia article
is a Japanese film written and directed by Yasujir Ozu in 1947. The film was Ozu's first after World War II.
Synopsis
Tashiro (Chish Ry), Tamekichi (Reikichi Kawamura), and O-tane (Chko Iida) are among the residents of a poor district of Tokyo that has been severely damaged in the bombing raids of 1944-45. They live on the economic margins of a society devastated by years of war: Tashiro is a street fortune teller, Tamekichi mends pots and pans and also buys and sells whatever he can get hold of, and O-tane is a widow who sells what odds and ends she can obtain.
Tashiro returns one evening to the house he shares with Tamekichi and brings with him a boy of about seven named Khei (Hhi Aoki). Khei's home is in Chigasaki, about forty miles away, but he has become separated from his father while in Tokyo and has followed Tashiro home from Kudan, where Tashiro has been telling fortunes in the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine. Tashiro wants to give Khei a bed for the night, but Tamekichi refuses, saying he hates brats, and tells Tashiro to take the boy across the street to O-tane and get her to put him up. O-tane reluctantly does so.
During the night, Khei wets the futon he is sleeping on. O-tane tells Tamekichi that she has done her bit and he should now take responsibility for the boy. Tamekichi refuses and suggests that their neighbours, the Kawayoshis, might take him in. Kawayoshi (Takeshi Sakamoto), a dyer who has children of his own, says he cant, and the three of them draw lots to decide who will take the boy back to Chigasaki. Tamekichi rigs the draw so that O-tane loses.
O-tane takes the boy to Chigasaki, where she learns that Khei and his father had been living in a rented room after their own house at Hachiji was destroyed in the bombing. The landlady tells O-tane that the two had left for Tokyo a few days previously as Khei's father, a carpenter, hoped to find work there. She does not expect him back and does not know how to contact him. O-tane and Khei eat their lunch of rice balls on the sanddunes. O-tane tries to get rid of Khei by sending him down to the shore to collect some seashells for her and then running off, but the boy runs after her.
O-tane returns with the boy to Tashiro and Tamekichi's house and tells them that her journey was fruitless. Tamekichi reminds her that there is a meeting of the residents association that evening at the Kawayoshis house. She takes Khei back to her house, tells him to go to bed early, and leaves for the meeting. At the meeting, the Kawayoshis provide a generous spread of food and drink bought with money that their son has won in the lottery. The company agree that children are lucky on the lottery because they are pure-minded, not scheming and grasping like adults.
The next day, Kiku (Mitsuko Yoshikawa), an old friend of O-tane's who runs a geisha house, and is therefore prosperous, calls on O-tane. They discuss the current shortages of food and other essentials. Khei comes in with a pocket full of cigarette ends and nails that he has picked up in the street to give to his father. O-tane and Kiku reflect on the contrast between their own carefree childhoods and the hardships facing children in the straitened postwar world. As she leaves, Kiku gives Khei a ten-yen note. O-tane tells him to go and buy a lottery ticket he's more or less pure-minded so may be lucky. She then goes across the street to Tamekichi's house. While she is there, Tamekichi's daughter Yukiko turns up. She is a modern, Americanised young woman wearing trousers and a sweater, a headscarf, and dark glasses. O-tane comments that she has put on weight, and Tamekichi remarks that it's not easy to do these days. The daughter asks Tamekichi if he has had lunch. He asks her if she has brought anything good. She says she thought shed share his. He replies You must be joking. You dont bring anything and then you eat mine.
Khei fails to win anything on the lottery. O-tane upbraids him, saying that it is because of his bad attitude. He starts to cry. O-tane gives him his ten yen back, but grumbles that he has made her lose money.
Later, O-tane is berating Khei for eating some of the persimmons she had hung outside the window to dry. He denies it, but she refuses to believe him. Tamekichi comes in and tells her that he ate them. O-tane apologises to Khei and gives him some of the persimmons.
The next day, Khei's futon is wet again. After two o'clock, O-tane tells Tamekichi that the boy has been missing since before breakfast. Tamekichi expresses the opinion that he wont come back and when O-tane says she's worried hell go hungry he tells her that the boy will scavenge from dustbins. O-tane spends the rest of the day searching the streets. In the evening, Kiku visits again. She says that O-tane was always irascible and that when she glares it is enough to frighten any child. O-tane admits that she was too angry with the boy and says that he has a good heart. Kiku tells her that, in spite of herself, O-tane has grown fond of him. O-tane admits this is so. Tashiro arrives with Khei. The boy had run away because he was afraid of the consequences of wetting his bed for the second time and had gone back to Kudan. When they are alone, O-tane asks Khei if hell be her son. He says Yes.
O-tane and Kiku are sitting on a bench at the zoo watching Khei, dressed in new clothes, looking at the giraffe. O-tane says she's never felt so good before its whats called maternal love. They go to a photography studio and O-tane and Khei have their portrait taken.
Back at home, O-tane is talking about plans for Khei to go to school when his father (Eitar Ozawa) turns up. He thanks O-tane for looking after the boy, for whom he has been searching. O-tane gives him the clothes and books she has bought for Khei and, as father and son leave, says Be sure to come and visit. Tamekichi and Tashiro come from across the street. Tamekichi says he's glad the boy has been reunited with his father it's a happy ending. O-tane begins to cry. Tamekichi says Whats up? You didnt like him to begin with. O-tane says she's crying for happiness because the boy is back with his father. She had thought the father was uncaring, but realizes she was wrong. She wishes shed treated the boy better. Children are wonderful. He was only here a week, but he really made me think.' She asks Tashiro to read her palm to see if it is possible that she might adopt a child. He advises her to look for one near the statue of Takamori Saig at the entrance to Ueno Park. The film ends with a montage of boys orphaned and made homeless by the war hanging about near the Saig statue, aimlessly smoking and playing games.
Title
The accepted English title of the film is based on a misreading of the Japanese title 'Nagaya shinshiroku'(). A 'nagaya' () is a row of houses with shared dividing walls but separate entrances what would be called terraced houses in the UK, 'row houses' in the US. 'Shinshiroku' ( : literally, gentlemans record) means 'Whos Who'. A better translation of the title would be 'A Whos Who of the Backstreets'.The standard dictionary 'Kjien' ()defines 'nagaya' and 'shinshiroku' as follows:
'Nagaya': A number of dwellings constructed in a continuous row as a single building. That is, where several households live alongside one another in a single building. ()
'Shinshiroku': A reference book which lists the names, addresses, career histories, professions, etc, of persons of social standing.(
Cast
* Chko Iida as O-tane
* Hhi Aoki as Khei
* Eitaro Ozawa as Khei's father
* Mitsuko Yoshikawa as Kiku
* Reikichi Kawamura as Tamekichi
* Hideko Mimura as Yukiko (Tamekichi's daughter)
* Chish Ry as Tashiro
* Takeshi Sakamoto as Kihachi Kawayoshi
* Eiko Takamatsu as Tome (Kihachi's wife)
* Fujiyo Nagafune as Shigeko (Kihachi's daughter)
* Yichi Kaga as Hei-chan (Kihachi's son)
* Yoshino Tani as Landlady (at Chigasaki)
* Taiji Tonoyama as Photographer
Reception
'Record of a Tenement Gentleman' has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Dave Kehr argued that "Ozu deflects the sentimental thrust of the material by taking it all in through his passive, profoundly accepting point of view." Tim Purtell of 'Entertainment Weekly' assigned the film a "B" and wrote that although it is slow-moving, the work "rewards patience with rich sentiment thats never mawkish."
References
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