Review of Gate of Flesh (1964) by Edith N — 05 Nov 2008

Okay, not [i]all[/i] flesh. As with any other post-war movie worth its salt, there is also trading in penicillin. Mostly, though, there are the women--and the stolen cow. The girls themselves note that the price per pound of beef is the same as they charge for an encounter. It's pretty grim stuff, really. However, trading in penicillin is trading in flesh of a kind--not because the drug itself is flesh, but because it is a device for making flesh healthy. It saves lives, which is a kind of trading for the same commodity as the women and the cow-thief. Each set of traders, too, has a set of rules. The penalties are harsh if and when the rules are violated, but they'd been made clear at the beginning.

Maya (Yumiko Nogawa) was raped by American soldiers in the wake of World War II. Desperate and alone, she goes to Tokyo, where no one will know her. She falls in with a band of young prostitutes, who take her in and make her one of them. She knows the rules--no pimps, no outsiders, and no giving it away. If any of the group has sex without taking payment, the others fall on her. They beat her, humiliate her, cut off her hair, and cast her out. Maya sees this happen; she knows it will happen to her if she fails them. And then, Shin (Jo Shishido) walks into their lives. He has killed an American serviceman, holds a consignment of stolen penicillin, and ends up seeking the protection of the girls.

What is most striking about the film, I think, is its use of colour. The streets are desolate. Drab. Everything is in shades of brown and grey. Walking through this are the prostitutes, each in her own glowing colour. The sole exception is Machiko (Misako Tominaga), who wears black--and does not dress in the flashy Western way of the others. She still wishes for a traditional life, despite the desperation that makes her sell her body alongside the others. One suspects that she services a different sort of clientele, the kind who longs for the old days before the war, not the younger, more grasping kind that goes for the others. And, of course, Machiko falls in love.

The girls are all seeking something, I think. Most seek independence, freedom, a way out from under the thumb of men. Hence the "no pimps" policy--and, I think, the "don't give it away" policy as well. However, Maya seeks to forget and Machiko seeks to find anew. Machiko, we learn, was married once. Presumably her husband, like so many other Japanese men of the time, was killed in the war. Maya seeks to start anew with Shin, with a life that is completely separated from her old one. She wants to forget her rape. I think it also has its roots in the "no Americans" policy--the women are all under the thumb of America; the whole country is. And this in a world where a woman and a pound of beef will cost the same.

Japanese post-war cinema is a curious thing. It is a struggle between the Westernizing influences and the desire to hold on to the past. The whole of the culture seems to be as torn as Maya. The women cling desperately to their nonchalance, their false gaiety. They flaunt their bright colours--red, green, purple, yellow--and cling to their own rules so that the rules of others will not touch them. This is the same culture of cinema that was bringing up Kurosawa to his greatest work. This film is much more obscure--[i]I'd[/i] never heard of it--but it is a good example of its type.