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The Makioka Sisters (1983) [The Criterion Collection #567]

Posted By: Someonelse

Date: 29 May 2022 04:14:34

SD / DVD IMDb

The Makioka Sisters (1983) [The Criterion Collection #567]

Director: Kon Ichikawa
Writers: Shin'ya Hidaka, Kon Ichikawa
Stars: Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga

This lyrical adaptation of the beloved novel by Junichiro Tanizaki was a late-career triumph for director Kon Ichikawa. Structured around the changing of the seasons, The Makioka Sisters (Sasame-yuki) follows the lives of four siblings who have taken on their family’s kimono manufacturing business, in the years leading up to the Pacific War. The two oldest have been married for some time, but according to tradition, the rebellious youngest sister cannot wed until the third, conservative and terribly shy, finds a husband. This graceful study of a family at a turning point in history is a poignant evocation of changing times and fading customs, shot in rich, vivid colors.

IMDB | Wikipedia | Rotten Tomatoes | Criterion

It’s like the work of a painter who has perfect control of what color he gives you… Ichikawa is a deadpan sophisticate, with a film technique so masterly that he pulls you into the worlds he creates… At first you’re like an eavesdropper on a fascinating world that you’re ignorant about. But then you find that you’re not just watching this film – you’re coasting on its rhythms, and gliding past the precipitous spots. Ichikawa celebrates the delicate beauty of the Makioka sisters, and at the same time makes you feel that there’s something amusingly perverse in their poise and politesse… There’s a triumphant simplicity about his work here. This venerable director is doing what so many younger directors have claimed to be doing: he’s making visual music.”
Pauline Kael

A prestige literary adaptation (from Tanizaki's 1948 family saga Sasameyuki, sometimes known as A Light Snowfall) produced by the Toho studio to mark their 50th anniversary, becomes in Ichikawa's hands an imposing tribute to classical Japanese cinema. There's certainly a strong tinge of Ozu in this stately tale, set in 1938 and structured around a series of marriage interviews in which an aristocratic Osaka family research a suitable prospect for the youngest but one of five sisters. The legacy of past scandal, the Makiokas' diminishing status in increasingly industrialised Japan, the sniping for supremacy between the quintet of siblings, and the rumble of approaching conflict, all make for a complex narrative, micro-managed with authority by Ichikawa, who omits the the great Kobe flood that constitutes the novel's key dramatic episode, and instead draws the viewer in through the elliptical release of significant personal detail. The film's visual pleasures meanwhile (exquisite kimonos and cherry blossoms, elegant traditional interiors shimmering in low key lighting), are positively luxuriant, celebrating traditional Japanese aesthetics while recording the passing of a cossetted, gilded world. Pity about the horrid synthesizer score marking the changes. Anyone who dismisses late Ichikawa just isn't paying attention. This is masterly.
Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide

The film is instead about finding happiness through courtship rituals that are shown to be as flawed as they are potentially useful. It's important to note that the eponymous siblings aren't being actively rushed into marriage by their mother as they are in Pride and Prejudice. Instead, the Makioka sisters police each other, making sure that the two younger, unwed sisters not only meet with potential suitors, but also only consider the ones their family approves of. Even Taeko (Yûko Kotegawa), the youngest of the four girls, defers to the wisdom of Tsuruko (Keiko Kishi), the eldest Makioka, who maintains that Taeko can only marry after middle child Yukiko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) finds a suitable match of her own. Even Sachiko (Yoshiko Sakuma), the second eldest Makioka, has a vested interest in seeing both Taeko and Yukiko wed since the younger two sisters are living with her and her husband Teinosuke (Kôji Ishizaka) until they wed.

The Makioka Sisters (1983) [The Criterion Collection #567]

None of the Makiokas want to out-and-out reject the way of life that they've grown accustomed to—or the courtship rituals they dutifully observe for the sake of saving face with their family. In fact, Taeko never really seriously pursues either of the men that she has her eye on and Yukiko doesn't feel a strong emotional attachment to any of the suitors she's introduced to either. They go through the motions of complying with their elder sisters' wishes, though whether they're doing so out of a misplaced sense of duty or for the sake of finding their own happiness is a mystery.

The Makioka Sisters (1983) [The Criterion Collection #567]

The impenetrable complexity of Ichikawa's demure heroines is a huge part of their appeal as characters. They air their grievances with each other behind closed doors, but even after they do vent to each other in private, they usually either ignore or sublimate their anxieties. Take, for instance, the early scene where Tsuruko and Sachiko fall out with each other. Sachiko insists that Tsuruko isn't doing her best for the family by not letting her sisters manage their own dowries. Tsuruko politely but firmly denies this. Sachiko insists, "You are," while Tsuruko curtly rebuffs her: "I'm not." The two repeat this childish exchange verbatim until both women stop and smile at each other. In a matter of a few indelible seconds, Ichikawa cuts quickly back and forth between Tsuruko and Sachiko's faces while they exchange malicious and icy, then suddenly weirdly warm, then apologetic but broad grins. And this confrontation is the most heated quarrel in the film!

The Makioka Sisters (1983) [The Criterion Collection #567]

The Makioka Sisters's serene tone is symptomatic of the fact that the film isn't about the end of an era but rather the beginning of one. The film is set in 1938, near the beginning of the Sh?wa era in Japan, a tempestuous period that ended in 1989 with Hirohito's death and included such major traumatic events as the Sino-Japanese War, WWII, and the Allied occupation of Japan. Within that context, it's important to note that Ichikawa, the director of such searing anti-war allegories as Fires on the Plain and The Burmese Harp, chose to treat The Makioka Sisters's pre-war melodrama not as a naïve prelude to darker times ahead, but as a bright period of impending change.
Simon Abrams, Slant Magazine