As mentioned in my last post, the tragedy of Sadao Yamanaka’s fate has often been deplored by cinephiles interested in early Japanese cinema. Drafted to the front in 1938 at the age of 28 as punishment for his political activism, the director, hailed as one of the most promising cinematic talents by his contemporaries, died from a disease contracted on the battle field, leaving behind 12 finished films of which only three have survived today. All three films, The Pot Worth A Million Ryo, Koshiyama Soshun and Humanity And Paper Balloons are generally hailed as masterpieces, and rumors float around that his other films, which we will most likely never see, were even better.
No one can really say if there is any veracity to this claim, but we can appreciate the fact that Yamanaka, along with a small group of other directors and screenwriters such as Hiroshi Inagaki, revitalized the Japanese period film in the 1930’s by updating it in terms of dialogue and themes, but also by ablating some of its gravitas and imbuing it with a healthy dose of humor and adding romantic subplots, which was often criticized as "too American". For our contemporary tastes, however, Yamanaka’s films stand as oddities as well as strokes of genius, a singular and peculiar auteur vision that leaves us wanting for more.
The Pot Worth A Million Ryo, the earliest of Yamanaka’s surviving films, is part caper movie, part comedy, part drama, part jidaigeki. The story concerns, as you might have guessed, a pot that ostensibly is worth a million ryo, although its value is never explained or questioned. Believing it to be worthless, a powerful Lord offered it to his brother Genzaburo as a wedding present. Genzaburo, insulted by the present (the pot does not look particularly valuable), sells it to ragpickers who themselves give it to a little boy who uses it as a container for his goldfish. When the boy's father, a rice merchant, is murdered, Tangekazen, the one-eyed ronin, takes him under his wing, much to his lover Okami's chagrin. One by one, the characters discover the pot’s worth and set out to find it. Genzaburo seems to be the most intent on locating the pot, but he only uses it as an excuse to spend his time outside of the house and far away from his wife, flirting and hanging around a tea house which is run by Okami. When he finally realizes that Tangekazen and the boy have the pot, he doesn’t hand it over to his wife but let’s them keep it so that he can still spend his time at the tea house, pretending to be on the hunt for it.
Such a set-up leaves a lot of room for interpretation and analysis, of course. We can find themes of class distinction, male-female relationships, fate, the deep irony of life – the list goes on. One idea central to the film is that what we want most is oftentimes right in front us, but we ignore it. Obviously, the invaluable pot is the prime example of this leitmotiv. Another one is Tangekazen’s inability to tell the boy that his father was murdered. Not only is the truth right in front of the boy without him being able to grasp it, but the ronin tries to establish an honest relationship with the boy, an undertaking tainted by the heavy secret.
In fact, most if not all characters have something to hide: the vassal of the Emperor who tries to get back the pot from Genzaburo first for free and then for a small amount of money; the rice vendor who tells everyone he has a big shop when in reality he lives in poverty; Genzaburo who pretends to search for the pot when in reality he spends his days flirting with Okami’s assistant. There is a clear divide between what the characters make reality out to be, and what reality really is. Stylistically, Yamanaka expresses this with the transition-by-negation. When Tangekazen first brings the boy home, Okami refuses to feed him. The next shot shows the boy eating. Later, she refuses to buy him bamboo sticks. The next shot shows the boy walking on bamboo sticks. Instances like that can be found throughout the movie.
More than humorous transitions, these vignettes form meaning. The characters are constantly struggling to come to terms with the reality around them. Genzaburo makes himself out to be a better archer than he really is. Tangekazen exhibits a tuff shell but has a soft heart. The boy has to accept the sudden change of his living environment, and then runs away when Okami and the ronin fight about him. Consequently, the characters discover most truths by proxy. Everyone is told about the pot's worth. They don't discover it themselves. Genzaburo's wife discovers his mischief only after one of her employees point out where he is. Genzaburo shoots an exaggerated amount of arrows at a target but it is Okami's employee who has to reveal to him how many hit the spot: a single one.
In my mind, The Pot Worth A Million Ryo is more concerned with the way we try to make sense of our environment than an oblique meditation on class relations or the irony of life. As humans, we can only grasp but one tiny portion of what life entails. We have to rely on third parties, institutions and art to make sense of it all. One joke, told by the boy, expresses this perfectly: "why do humans have two eyes? Because otherwise the second eyeglass lens would be a waste." We all make sense of our world differently. And sometimes, the most obvious is right in front us without us realizing it.
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