I hated the first half of this film so much that I thought it would almost certainly get a scathing review and one of the lowest possible review scores from me. It's unpleasant to say the least, and problematic in several ways, the biggest of which is its treatment of women. You see, amidst the squalor of a slum near a U. S. Army base, a young woman is raped by a sleazeball posing as her rescuer, and she wants to marry him instead of going to the police. Obviously a big part of that relates to the culture and time period, and the (disgusting) reality that as a "ruined" woman she may not be able to get another man to marry her. However, it builds on this. In a second encounter, he slaps her around, and she embraces him tenderly anyway. We soon see her placated, demurely eating a watermelon, and aside from fear over the man's cruelty to another woman, we don't really see signs of her trauma. When she says "I saw it as fate and resigned myself to forgiving Joe. It seemed like one way to find a mate," it's beyond nauseating.
Meanwhile, Kobayashi gives us the various doings of Les Misérables in the slum, the subplots of which are unpleasant to watch and don't develop into anything much. In one scene, they argue with a woman about their excrement being used to help fertilize a garden. In another, they refuse to give blood to help a man who desperately needs a transfusion. In yet another, a woman tries to seduce the virtuous young man, but her husband catches her and physically assaults her. Later, when she turns to prostitution, he threatens to tie her up and beat her. All is selfishness, and there is no honor to be found anywhere.
The undercurrent to all of this moral decay is that it's due to the American occupiers, something signaled without nuance or reference to the Japanese militarism that brought on the war. We see the base and English signs for bars and brothels prominently in the background. When the lone virtuous man in the film asserts in indignation that "Japan is an independent nation," he's hit with the reality that the denizens of the slum have to pay for the utilities of the American base. We also see what is almost certainly the racist use of African American servicemen to heighten the sense of depravity.
Despite these issues, the film turned itself around in its second half. While the film is never full free of misogyny, the woman's motivations become a little clearer, and when the story begins focusing on the love triangle coming to a head, it's at its strongest. One guy (Fumio Watanabe) is a student, the other (wonderfully sinister Tatsuya Nakadai) is a violent game leader, and in their struggle for the woman (Ineko Arima), there is a fight for the soul of Japan, an old trope. The woman taking control of her own destiny and how the conflict was resolved was satisfying and cathartic.
The story about the slum being sold so that it can be demolished and turned into a "love hotel" doesn't end quite as strongly or as happily, but perhaps in that it balanced out the main story line. The residents must all agree to leave before it can be sold, and we see some of them bribed, and others who have their signature stamps forged. A "communist" tries to get them to stand together but fails, lamenting "Workers minds never seem to advance. This is hopeless. The military and the authorities always exert control over the workers." There is a sense of capitalist greed and corruption triumphing because the common man is uneducated and disorganized, a dark truism.
It's a tough one to rate because of how unpleasant the first half was, but in the end, I found that I was glad I had seen it for the little window it provided. The cinematography and cool jazz soundtrack helped as well. Not one I'd recommend necessarily though.
