The Straits of Love and Hate

A film from the prewar period of Japanese cinema. Ofumi works at a country inn. She is involved with the innkeeper's son, and the end of that is plain; the family will not allow it. The two run away to Tokyo. Work is not easy to find in the city. The young man cannot stand it and goes back; the woman stays, with a child. After that Ofumi joins a travelling company of performers. She works on stage, moves through the provinces and makes her living that way. Years later her road brings her back to the old inn. What the film is interested in is not love but class: everything that happens to the woman comes from a woman without family having no protection at all. Mizoguchi does not explain it, he only shows it. In the last section there is an offer, and the woman's answer sets the whole position of the film. Fumiko Yamaji plays Ofumi. Seizaburō Kawazu and Masao Shimizu are in the cast. It is one of Mizoguchi's prewar films and one of the few that survive; the picture quality is poor. Who it is for: anyone interested in early Japanese cinema and in Mizoguchi's stories about women. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a technically clean watch; the sound and image are worn and the editing is very calm by today's measure.