That Night's Wife (1930)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu

Film Review

That Night's Wife was Yasujirô Ozu's 16th film and is unlike any other film he made, the one occasion on which he combined the distinctive trappings of the American gangster film with his 'home drama' or 'shomin-geki', the genre that would come to dominate most of his output from the mid-1940s.  Ozu had been a devoted aficionado of American cinema since his early teens, so it is hardly surprising that when he started making films in the late 1920s he would be strongly influenced by the American film directors he had come to idolise. The impact of the early film noir directors, in particular Josef von Sternberg, can be felt in the three gangster-styled films that Ozu made in the early 1930s, none more so than the haunting nocturnal poem that is That Night's Wife.

The film is based on a short story Nine to Nine by the American writer Oscar Shisgall, who was best known as a corporate historian.  The story had first appeared in a 1927 edition of Detective Story Magazine, and was subsequently published in Japan in 1930 in the magazine Shin Seinen (New Young Men).  Once he had read the story, the head of Shôchiku studio, Shiro Kido, immediately requested screenwriter Kôgo Noda (a frequent collaborator of Ozu) to adapt it for cinema.  The film's original title Sono yo no tsuma translates better as The Wife, On That Night.  Kido was so impressed by Ozu's rendering of Shisgall's pulp fiction story that he rewarded the director with an expenses paid holiday to a hot spring.

That Night's Wife is one of only three films made by Ozu which takes place almost entirely at night time, the other two being Woman of Tokyo (1933) and Tokyo Twilight (1957).  The vast majority of Ozu's films are shot during daytime, and any nocturnal scenes that appear in these films are usually happy interludes in which characters are seen amusing themselves, enjoying the Tokyo night life.  That Night's Wife, Woman of Tokyo and Tokyo Twilight stand apart from Ozu's work and reveal a much darker, more pessimistic side to the director, a side that his admirers will find hard to recognise.

The one aspect of Ozu's character that the film reveals most strongly is his close affinity with the problems of ordinary people, which informs much of his later work and gave those celebrated masterpieces of his mature years such power and immediacy.  Not only was Ozu intensely concerned with the tribulations of Mr and Mrs Average, he was also an astute critic of Japanese society and in That Night's Wife he presents us with a highly pertinent moral dilemma: can it ever be right for someone to step outside the law for the good of his family?  At a time of immense economic hardship, when the state made no provision for those in dire straits, it may seem reasonable for a father to steal money to pay for medicine that would save his child's life.  Such an act may be forgiven on humane grounds but is it morally valid?  If individuals are permitted to break the law out of dire necessity what then is the point of having laws in the first place?  These are the conundrums that Ozu invites us to ponder in a work that is mired in moral complexity.

The moral dilemma is one that torments not only the desperate father who was driven to crime but also the thick-skinned detective who has come to arrest him and his devoted wife.  The cop knows that if he fulfils his professional duty and takes the father away he risks killing an innocent child.  The wife is herself driven to an act of desperation to save her daughter and the man she loves.  The second half of the film becomes nothing more than a stand-off between the three main characters who are paralysed by their moral confusion.  The cop is at first taken prisoner by the wife (who somehow manages to lay her hand on a gun - just one of many implausible plot contrivances) but is later taken hostage by his own conscience.

Ozu emphasises the moral conflict by cross-cutting between the characters (something he rarely does in his later films).  In the background, the name 'Walter Huston' blares out from an American film poster, like the nagging voice of conscience (at the time, Huston was strongly identified with playing morally upright characters).  Near the end of this remarkable sequence, the camera zooms towards the cop as it becomes clear he has made the decision to let the father escape justice.  But then, in an astonishing volte-face, the camera pulls back as the moral pendulum swings the other way, towards the father, who realises that he must give himself up.  As dawn breaks, the moral uncertainty dissipates and order is restored to a troubled universe.

That Night's Wife has an intensity and focus that is rare even in Ozu's oeuvre.  Not only do the events of the film take place in a limited time interval (one night), much of the drama (six reels out of seven) is confined to one set, the cramped one-room apartment of the central protagonist and his wife.  The lighting throughout is broodingly atmospheric, styled on the sinister expressionism of early American film noir, with the sets draped in shadows so tangible that you can almost feel them.  The camerawork has (for Ozu) an unusual fluidity, the repeated use of slow tracking shots adding to the claustrophobic tension and sense of urgency.  Throughout the film, you feel that time is running out, that the spectre of death may appear at any moment.  Each character is driven to the limits of what he or she can endure, torn by a personal inner struggle that intensifies as, minute by precious minute, the dark night slowly ebbs away.

And how can we not identify with the tormented father, admirably well played by Tokihiko Okada in his first Ozu film?  Okada derived his popularity from his astonishing good looks but he was also a formidable actor, capable of investing any of his screen portrayals with seemingly limitless reserves of energy, humour, humanity and pathos.  When we first see Okada in this film, he appears to be the archetypal hoodlum, prosecuting his crime with steely resolve.  Soon it becomes apparent that he is a reluctant criminal, and then an ordinary man driven to crime by desperate circumstances.  As he weeps over his stricken child, we see a loving father who is overwhelmed with guilt and an awareness of his own failure.  Few other Japanese actors of this era could have made this series of transitions as convincingly as Okada, who went onto to deliver some equally memorable performances in other Ozu films: Young Miss (1930), The Lady and the Beard (1931) and Tokyo Chorus (1931).  When he died from tuberculosis, tragically young in 1934, Japan was robbed of one its greatest acting talents.

Film Synopsis

Shuji Hashizume, a struggling professional artist, is driven to steal money at gunpoint so that he can pay for medical treatment for his chronically sick infant daughter.  As he makes his getaway, pursued by the police, he takes a taxi back to his one room apartment, unaware that the taxi driver is an undercover detective.  Shuji is comforted by his wife's news that a doctor has examined their bedridden child and confirmed that she will survive if she can make it through the night.  Shuji promises his wife that he will hand himself over to the police in the morning.  When the cop comes to arrest Shuji, the artist's wife pulls a gun on him and insists on taking him prisoner until her daughter has recovered...