Japanese director Keisuke Kinoshita's prolific career (he directed 42 films during his 23 years as director) has been largely unnoticed in the anglophone West. In his own country, Kinoshita (1912 - 1998) was critically and commercially hugely successful, but his work was eclipsed in the West by his contemporary Akira Kurosawa. Both directed their debuts in 1943, but it was Kinoshita who won the coveted New Director Award that year, and his work was commonly seen as superior to Kurosawa's throughout his career. A driven man and a true lover of cinema, Kinoshita ran away from home as an adolescent to pursue his dream of becoming a filmmaker. When he began to work for the Shochiku Kamata studios during the thirties, he had to begin as camera assistant and work his way up because he was prohibited to start out as assistant director without a college education. His debut The Blossoming Port is unfortunately unavailable to us, as is most of his work, but what I was able to view shows the signature of a master of the medium.
On the surface, Immortal Love could be seen as a simple melodrama with compelling characters and an unusual if strangely fitting flamenco score. But what Kinoshita does with this movie is to show how time, rather than allowing for change, perpetuates the same traditions and injustices, cementing a social fabric that is both cruel and amoral. When Seibei comes home from the Sino-Japanese war, crippled and bitter, he gets obsessed with the beautiful Sadako. But she is in love with Takashi who hasn't returned from the war yet. One night, Seibei rapes her and uses the power of his influential family to bully her into marrying him. When Takashi returns from the war, they vow to run off together but Takashi decides against it at the last moment and leaves alone. We now follow Sadako's fate over four decades, and witness how she tries to elude her unhappiness, while social conventions and family ties keep her in place.
Nothing is more bland and depressing than to follow the utter unhappiness of a struggling couple over the entire course of a film (I'm looking at you, Blue Valentine). Thankfully, Kinoshita is a superior screenwriter and he gives us a far more compelling narrative. Instead of making Sadako a passive victim of circumstances, he writes her as a harbor of passive aggressiveness. Sadako and Seibei's marriage is marked by constant bickering, accusations and cruelty, but both sides are involved. Just as Seibei is not completely unlikable, Sadako is not entirely likable. Of course she tries to forget the fateful night of her rape, but in the process she also suppresses her own wrong-doings and ignores her path to happiness. And Seibei, although a misogynist pig, is a man utterly broken by his war experience, harboring an inferiority complex, and a co-dependency with his children. Seeing the story unfold over several decades makes one thing clear: people don't change. They might wish to change, and the future might seem like a desirable escape where they can project their happiness, but in reality, passing time simply cements the given circumstances. It doesn't change anything.
Stylistically, we're in for a treat. The anamorphic frame enables Kinoshita's camera to capture some stunning images of nature and sky, and his interior compositions use deep focus to perfection. The smart editing, instead of simply providing us with different angles of the action, builds up the scene dramatically. We often start the scene with a wide angle shot and progress by framing the action tighter, until we end up with close-ups of the protagonists reacting to an important revelation. It emphasizes what's really important in the scene in terms of story, and keeps the editing dynamic. One recurring motive in the film is means of transportation and Kinoshita uses it to underline the long-term narrative. Every time we jump ahead in time, someone arrives or leaves the village and we get a shot of horses or a train carrying passengers. Just like time passes unrelentingly, people come and go; except for Seibei and Sadako who are stuck in a relationship with no future, but who are unable to break free from it.
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