Akitsu Springs

Akitsu onsen estreava há 60 anos no Japão. Yoshida, Yoshida, meu amor. Você pode imaginar que o Yoshida ainda na Shochiku seria mais domesticado, mas ele já é um tremendo diretor, mesmo que se trate de um melodrama em moldes mais clássicos, seu know-how inato reluz em cada composição. Gosto da narrativa em que a mulher transfere seu Eros ao homem e ele por sua vez transfere seu Tanatos à ela, não é esse o cerne da relação desigual num mundo patriarcal? No YouTube ( https://youtu.be/q2Kph8mHjeI )

In the waning days of WWII, a young man dying of tuberculosis arrives at the Akitsu Springs resource. The innkeeper's daughter nurses him to health and gives him the will to keep living. They fall in love, but her parents drive him away. He marries and lives an (unhappy) life of his own, while she obsessively waits for him to return. This glossy, slow moving romantic melodrama feels like the Japanese equivalent of the big, turgid studio prestige dramas Hollywood produced in the 1950's.

The beginning was filled with bad acting, pace and direction. It wasn't until the latter part did I see any redeeming qualities. I especially liked how these two remarkedly different people basically coalesced into the same being. But at that point, it was too little, too late.

Pretty, but corny and poorly made.