The Teahouse of the August Moon
Like Le Silence de le Mer, Daniel Mann's The Teahouse of the August Moon depicts a narrow slice of World War Two; in this case, the U.S. occupation of Okinawa in 1946. Where the former film is grim and dramatic, the latter is a somewhat satirical comedy from 1956 featuring Marlon Brando's now incredible-seeming performance as an Okinawan interpreter. With makeup, his epicanthic folds mask the familiar face, but below, especially when he smiles, he's Brando.
Still, as Sakini, he does a good job relating a story of how Army Captain Fisby (Glenn Ford), assigned to a poor village to supervise the building of a schoolhouse and bring American democratic values to the people there, goes native.
Colonel Wainwright (Paul Ford), who puts up an excess of signs and goes on at length about Mrs. Wainwright's morals as they relate to the fundamentals of democracy--a gift to a defeated people--and sputters and yells as often as he's deceived, bestows Sakini on Fisby, an Intelligence officer clearly out of his element and probably sick of being in the Army.
Once Fisby arrives in his assigned village, he is to appoint among the citizens a police chief, a leader of a women's league, and a head of agriculture. Sakini interprets, new officials are appointed--they all want Army helmets to mark their high offices. The Okinawan main characters and extras are never depicted condescendingly or as caricatures. The film's lack of subtitles puts an American audience member, like myself, in a position similar to Fisby's and later on to that of the Army psychiatrist, Captain McLean's (Eddie Albert), the officer sent to examine the former after Wainwright determines his subordinate hasn't followed instructions about commencing the building of "the pentagon-shaped schoolhouse."
McLean, too, succumbs to the village's charms, won over by Fisby's enthusiasm about giving the people what they want: a teahouse rather than a schoolhouse. After trying and failing to sell sundry products made in the village to generate gross domestic product, Fisby discovers the local sweet potato brandy, hits on the idea of selling it to Occupation forces on the island. This proves to be a great success, the teahouse gets built, everybody's happy until Colonel Wainwright shows up, shutting down the brandy business, or appearing to do so.
The Okinawans, as Sakini lets the audience know in breaking of the fourth wall fashion, have been conquered by the Japanese, overwhelmed by English missionaries, conquered again by Americans. They've learned to look at seemingly benevolent occupiers with a careful eye; thus, they play an illusory trick on Wainwright, who's convinced of the teahouse's dismantling and the breaking of the brandy barrels.
Wainwright, admonished by his own superior--who evidently got a taste of the sweet potato brandy--gets saved by Sakini and the villagers. The barrels destroyed contained water, the teahouse can quickly, with fast cooperative action, get put back together. Fisby and McLean are called upon to stay in the village to further develop its potential--McLean has an agriculture background.
Early on, Fisby is given a woman, the geisha, Lotus Blossom (Machiko Kyô). He doesn't want her around him at first. She's distracting, doesn't speak English, is hard to explain to any military superior. She wears him down, though, gets him to relax, has much to do with his settling in to the village's rhythms. He assigns her the task of teaching the geisha's arts to the village's women. She becomes the teahouse's main star.
Machiko Kyô, star of such classics as Rashomon, Ugetsu, and Gate of Hell, is a delightful presence in The Teahouse of the August Moon. When at the end she believes she'll never see Fisby again her sadness and resignation are heartrending--her expressiveness behind the mask of her societal role as geisha but also as a member of a conquered people comes through subtly but forcefully.
The film successfully depicts some of the insoluble difficulties of an occupation force as it attempts to shape a conquered nation to its will. The subjugated nation inevitably swallows the conqueror, taking new elements brought in by the conqueror and assimilating them. A glance to my right, for instance, puts the ubiquitous word, Sony, into my eyes, written on the sides of my two videocameras.
The film's strengths include the performances of Glenn Ford, Marlon Brando, and Machiko Kyô. Paul Ford, as the anxious Colonel, though he's not in the film much, comes across effectively as someone who, in civilian life, had a normal, boring job with far less stress and far more opportunities to be easy-going. In Okinawa, everything for him is upside-down. There, as Sakini implies, the outsider must adapt to local customs, or be lost. It doesn't take long for Captains Fisby and McLean to abandon the letters of their respective missions in favor of the spirits of their newfound home, where, in a daily ritual, every citizen gathers on a hilltop to watch the sunset and contemplate in silence the day that's passed.
Vic Neptune
Like Le Silence de le Mer, Daniel Mann's The Teahouse of the August Moon depicts a narrow slice of World War Two; in this case, the U.S. occupation of Okinawa in 1946. Where the former film is grim and dramatic, the latter is a somewhat satirical comedy from 1956 featuring Marlon Brando's now incredible-seeming performance as an Okinawan interpreter. With makeup, his epicanthic folds mask the familiar face, but below, especially when he smiles, he's Brando.
Still, as Sakini, he does a good job relating a story of how Army Captain Fisby (Glenn Ford), assigned to a poor village to supervise the building of a schoolhouse and bring American democratic values to the people there, goes native.
Colonel Wainwright (Paul Ford), who puts up an excess of signs and goes on at length about Mrs. Wainwright's morals as they relate to the fundamentals of democracy--a gift to a defeated people--and sputters and yells as often as he's deceived, bestows Sakini on Fisby, an Intelligence officer clearly out of his element and probably sick of being in the Army.
Once Fisby arrives in his assigned village, he is to appoint among the citizens a police chief, a leader of a women's league, and a head of agriculture. Sakini interprets, new officials are appointed--they all want Army helmets to mark their high offices. The Okinawan main characters and extras are never depicted condescendingly or as caricatures. The film's lack of subtitles puts an American audience member, like myself, in a position similar to Fisby's and later on to that of the Army psychiatrist, Captain McLean's (Eddie Albert), the officer sent to examine the former after Wainwright determines his subordinate hasn't followed instructions about commencing the building of "the pentagon-shaped schoolhouse."
McLean, too, succumbs to the village's charms, won over by Fisby's enthusiasm about giving the people what they want: a teahouse rather than a schoolhouse. After trying and failing to sell sundry products made in the village to generate gross domestic product, Fisby discovers the local sweet potato brandy, hits on the idea of selling it to Occupation forces on the island. This proves to be a great success, the teahouse gets built, everybody's happy until Colonel Wainwright shows up, shutting down the brandy business, or appearing to do so.
The Okinawans, as Sakini lets the audience know in breaking of the fourth wall fashion, have been conquered by the Japanese, overwhelmed by English missionaries, conquered again by Americans. They've learned to look at seemingly benevolent occupiers with a careful eye; thus, they play an illusory trick on Wainwright, who's convinced of the teahouse's dismantling and the breaking of the brandy barrels.
Wainwright, admonished by his own superior--who evidently got a taste of the sweet potato brandy--gets saved by Sakini and the villagers. The barrels destroyed contained water, the teahouse can quickly, with fast cooperative action, get put back together. Fisby and McLean are called upon to stay in the village to further develop its potential--McLean has an agriculture background.
Early on, Fisby is given a woman, the geisha, Lotus Blossom (Machiko Kyô). He doesn't want her around him at first. She's distracting, doesn't speak English, is hard to explain to any military superior. She wears him down, though, gets him to relax, has much to do with his settling in to the village's rhythms. He assigns her the task of teaching the geisha's arts to the village's women. She becomes the teahouse's main star.
Machiko Kyô, star of such classics as Rashomon, Ugetsu, and Gate of Hell, is a delightful presence in The Teahouse of the August Moon. When at the end she believes she'll never see Fisby again her sadness and resignation are heartrending--her expressiveness behind the mask of her societal role as geisha but also as a member of a conquered people comes through subtly but forcefully.
The film successfully depicts some of the insoluble difficulties of an occupation force as it attempts to shape a conquered nation to its will. The subjugated nation inevitably swallows the conqueror, taking new elements brought in by the conqueror and assimilating them. A glance to my right, for instance, puts the ubiquitous word, Sony, into my eyes, written on the sides of my two videocameras.
The film's strengths include the performances of Glenn Ford, Marlon Brando, and Machiko Kyô. Paul Ford, as the anxious Colonel, though he's not in the film much, comes across effectively as someone who, in civilian life, had a normal, boring job with far less stress and far more opportunities to be easy-going. In Okinawa, everything for him is upside-down. There, as Sakini implies, the outsider must adapt to local customs, or be lost. It doesn't take long for Captains Fisby and McLean to abandon the letters of their respective missions in favor of the spirits of their newfound home, where, in a daily ritual, every citizen gathers on a hilltop to watch the sunset and contemplate in silence the day that's passed.
Vic Neptune
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