A Hen in the Wind (May 4th and 5th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[A HEN IN THE WIND screens Saturday May 4th at 5:15 pm and Sunday May 5th at 6:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

In post-World Warr II Japan, sometimes people have to make difficult choices to get by. Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) is faced with just such a choice when her 4 year old son Hiroshi becomes sick. The boy gets better, but Tokiko is left with a sizable doctor's bill to pay. With her husband still not returned from the war, and all her valuable possessions already sold, Tokiko sees no alternative but to prostitute herself for the money.

Japanese benshi (silent film narrator) coming to the Cinematheque

[Press release from the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

 

Ichiro Kataoka, one of Japan’s foremost benshi (or silent film narrators), will perform in person at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque on Friday, November 16, at 7:30 pm. Kataoka will narrate the 1935 Japanese silent film AN INN AT TOKYO directed by Yasujiro Ozu (TOKYO STORY).

In Japan silent films were accompanied not only by music, but also by a benshi. Standing next to the screen, the benshi provided a running commentary on the movie while relaying the film’s story in a theatrical manner (playing multiple roles with a variety of voices). Some benshi were so popular that they were more of a draw than the movie itself! Though benshi disappeared with the coming of sound, certain individuals kept the tradition alive. Ichiro Kataoka is one of Japan’s foremost practitioners of this vanished art. He was the star pupil of master benshi Midori Sawato (who performed at The Cleveland Museum of Art in 1989) and is also a film and television performer, a voice actor for video games, and a historian. AN INN AT TOKYO, the movie he will narrate, is a moving drama about the relationship between an unemployed father and an equally destitute single mother.