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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2001 |
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| Film Title |
CHUJI TABI NIKKI |
| Alternative Title 1 |
[DIARY OF CHUJI'S TRAVELS, A] |
| Alternative Title 2 |
[DIARIO DI VIAGGIO DI CHUJI KUNISADA, IL] |
| Alternative Title 3 |
|
| Country |
Japan |
| Release Date |
1927 |
| Production Co. |
Nikkatsu |
| Director |
Ito, Daisuke |
| Format |
|
Speed (fps) |
| 35mm |
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18 |
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| Footage |
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Time |
| 6360 ft. |
|
94' |
| Archive Source |
National Film Center |
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| Print Notes |
Frammenti della seconda e terza parte / fragments of the second and third parts.
Didascalie in giapponese, sottotitoli in inglese / Japanese intertitles, English subtitles. |
| Cast |
Denjiro Okochi (seconda parte)
Hideo Nakamura (seconda parte)
Kichiji Nakamura (seconda parte)
Seinosuke Sakamoto (seconda parte)
Denjiro Okochi (terza parte)
Naoe Fushimi (terza parte)
Ranko Sawa (terza parte)
Motoharu Isokawa (terza parte)
Eiji Murakami (terza parte)
Nobuko Akitsuki (terza parte)
Kajo Onoe (terza parte)
Koka Nakamura (terza parte)
Mononosuke Ichikawa (terza parte) |
| |
| Other Credits |
Watarai, Rokuzo (ph.)
Karasawa, Hiromitsu (ph.) |
| |
| Other Information |
Günther A. Buchwald, pianoforte.
Seconda parte / second part: SHINSHU KESSHO HEN / [BLOODY LAUGHTER IN SHINSHU] / [RISO CRUENTO A SHINSHU];
Terza parte / third part, GOYO HEN / [IN THE NAME OF THE LAW] / [IN NOME DELLA LEGGE];
prima proiezione / released 14.8.1927 (seconda parte / second part), 27.12.1927 (terza parte / third part) |
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| Program Notes |
Every surviving Japanese silent film is an exception to the rule, a chance happening, a mere crumb. For Japan the lost film is the norm. According to its 2000 catalogue, the National Film Center has among its holdings not more than 70 films and fragments from before 1930. Whether that represents 1% or 5% of the total production is irrelevant - either way, it is next to nothing. Fragments of Daisuke Ito's trilogy Chuji Tabi Nikki (A Diary of Chuji's Travels, 1927) found their way to the Film Center in late 1991. The total length of the original trilogy was 6540 metres: what turned up in 1991 was 1800 metres of positive material, partially tinted and in poor condition, from an anthologised second version. The surviving material consists of an episode from the second part, Bloody Laughter in Shinsu (in which the persecuted Chuji, fleeing his pursuers, asks the merchant Yasusaemon to take in the boy Kantaro, and discovers that his own men are committing base robberies and have abused his noble name, ruining his reputation), and about half of the third part, In the Name of the Law, including the shortened, but relatively well preserved, finale. It is certainly a stroke of luck when a legendary masterpiece of silent cinema reappears, if only partially. What we are now able to see confirms the legend: it was most certainly a masterpiece. At the same time, however, it also confirms the extent of our misfortune, that the magnificent production of Japan of the 1920s is largely lost, and will remain so.
The fragments allow some extrapolation. Now lost is the overall triptych structure, described in contemporary reviews as a succession of dominant moods, from the "freshness" of the first part, via the intense "sentiment" of the central section, on into the "dark nihilism" of the final epilogue. However, the material that remains does contain a comparable mood modulation in microcosm, and, along with it, Chuji's utter decline from an athletic, invincible superhero into a paralysed, mute body on a stretcher. Also lost is the network of recurring motifs, both plot-related and visual, but some remnants (such as the circle motif in the giant brewery vats and the ring-around-the-rosy game of the children linking hands) demonstrate the director's visual sense and creative power in this respect. Also lost are most of the formally extravagant passages - critics mention accelerated montage sequences, and virtuoso camera movements, techniques which earned Daisuke Ito (or, in the Japanese name order, Ito Daisuke) his nickname of "Ido Daisuki" ("great fan of camera movements"). However, the surviving material contains many instances of perfect filmmaking flair.
In the ronin genre films, from the 1925 Orochi up to the films of Takeshi Kitano, the ronin or yakuza hero goes through the paces of his fatal melodrama: marginalized from society, he is driven by a tragic destiny, evil adversaries, and above all by his own absolute purity, towards his death in a final beautiful swordfight or by a noble suicide. Ito denies Chuji Kunisada, the popular hero of innumerable films, the fulfillment of this narrative plot pattern, by reducing him to a human wreck who can only witness the classic fight scene with the hero in the shining web of white ropes in the form of a children' game, while he, a cripple at the roadside, must watch a boy use his crutch to play at sword-fighting. At the end of the film he must watch from his sickbed while the last of his trusty followers sacrifice themselves for him, and allow himself to be taken prisoner, a living corpse, silenced and disabled. In making his hero fall so much further, Ito confers on him a far more intense level of tragedy. Ito's ugly, shameful ending is more moving than the usual beautiful-tragic one, and therefore more beautiful. Seen as a genre film, Chuji Tabi Nikki intensifies, extends, and transforms the standard formulae throughout.
Both a director's film and an actors' showcase, Chuji Tabi Nikki boasts a display of a presentational acting style which features virtuoso performances in scene after scene. The role of Chuji naturally is a vehicle for a maximum of such acting achievements. The female parts carry some weight (unlike those in post-war jidai geki). Especially impressive is the performance of the then-19-year-old Naoe Fushimi in the role of Chuji's concubine Oshina, who in the final section of the film takes centre stage in lieu of the eclipsed male star Chuji and for a few minutes exudes the most intense glamour, glowing red-hot yet icy. - MLF
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