Record of a Tenement Gentleman
| Record of a Tenement Gentleman | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Yasujirō Ozu |
| Written by |
Tadao Ikeda Yasujirō Ozu |
| Starring |
Chōko Iida Hohi Aoki |
| Music by | Ichirō Saitō |
| Cinematography | Yūharu Atsuta |
| Distributed by | Shōchiku |
|
Release date
|
May 20, 1947 |
|
Running time
|
72 min. |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Record of a Tenement Gentleman (長屋紳士録 Nagaya shinshiroku?) is a Japanese film written and directed by Yasujirō Ozu in 1947. The film was Ozu's first after World War II.
Tashiro (Chishū Ryū), Tamekichi (Reikichi Kawamura), and O-tane (Chōko Iida) are among the residents of a poor district of Tokyo that has been severely damaged in the bombing raids of 1944-45. They live on the economic margins of a society devastated by years of war: Tashiro is a street fortune teller, Tamekichi mends pots and pans and also buys and sells whatever he can get hold of, and O-tane is a widow who sells what odds and ends she can obtain.
Tashiro returns one evening to the house he shares with Tamekichi and brings with him a boy of about seven named Kōhei (Hōhi Aoki). Kōhei’s home is in Chigasaki, about forty miles away, but he has become separated from his father while in Tokyo and has followed Tashiro home from Kudan, where Tashiro has been telling fortunes in the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine. Tashiro wants to give Kōhei a bed for the night, but Tamekichi refuses, saying he ‘hates brats’, and tells Tashiro to take the boy across the street to O-tane and get her to put him up. O-tane reluctantly does so.
During the night, Kōhei wets the futon he is sleeping on. O-tane tells Tamekichi that she has done her bit and he should now take responsibility for the boy. Tamekichi refuses and suggests that their neighbours, the Kawayoshis, might take him in. Kawayoshi (Takeshi Sakamoto), a dyer who has children of his own, says he can’t, and the three of them draw lots to decide who will take the boy back to Chigasaki. Tamekichi rigs the draw so that O-tane loses.
O-tane takes the boy to Chigasaki, where she learns that Kōhei and his father had been living in a rented room after their own house at Hachiōji was destroyed in the bombing. The landlady tells O-tane that the two had left for Tokyo a few days previously as Kōhei’s father, a carpenter, hoped to find work there. She does not expect him back and does not know how to contact him. O-tane and Kōhei eat their lunch of rice balls on the sanddunes. O-tane tries to get rid of Kōhei by sending him down to the shore to collect some seashells for her and then running off, but the boy runs after her.
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