Mikio Naruse - Shiroi yajuu aka White Beast (1950)

The third film that Naruse made in 1950, White Beast (Shiroi yaji, 1950), was described by Kinema Junpo critic Tsumura Hideo three years later as "so indescribably miserable as to haunt me even today." Tsumura represents the bulk of Japanese critics of the time, who felt that Naruse experienced a terrible slump throughout the 1940s and this film seemed to be the "bottom of the ocean." The critical establishment was clearly not prepared to accept a woman's prison film featuring former prostitutes recovering from venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and estranged lovers. With its catfights, hysterical tantrums, film noir lighting, and dramatic music, White Beast is indicative of the new influences of the Hollywood psychological thriller on Naruse. Caged (John Cromwell, 1950) initiated a cycle of women's prison movies in the United States that may or may not have been shown in Japan, but the stylistics of White Beast draw on the same paranoid woman's films and film noir conventions that preceded the American cycle.







Naruse began working on Shiroi yaju in 1948, but the third Toho strike got under way during the shooting and Naruse had to wait two years until he could finish this film about a group of prostitutes in a rehabilitation facility struggling with social prejudices, unwanted pregnancies and venereal diseases. Naruse had to cope not only with the forced stop of the shooting, but also with the loss of his lead actress Miura Mitsuko, who in the meantime had married an officer of the occupation forces and had followed him to the United States. Naruse had to rewrite the script, add additional characters to cover up missing scenes with Miura and straighten out the differences of a quickly changing time. (Midnight Eye)









La bestia blanca
El Alberge Shirayuri se dedica a la rehabilitación de prostitutas. Su director, el apuesto Ryosuke Izumi, trabaja en compañía de la doctora Yuko Nakahara. Keiko, Mari y Minako son tres recién llegadas. El elegante atuendo de Keiko despierta las burlas y provocaciones de las demás internas. Una de ellas, Tamae, parece haber desarrollado una antipatía personal hacia Keiko...








5D