She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum

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She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum
野菊の如き君なりき
Nogiku no gotoki kimi nariki
Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita
Screenplay by Keisuke Kinoshota (screenplay)
Saicho Ito (novel)
Cinematography Hiroshi Kusuda
Production
company
Release dates
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  • 1955 (1955) (Japan)
Country Japan
Language Japanese

She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum (野菊の如き君なりき Nogiku no gotoki kimi nariki), also known as You Were Like a Wild Chrysanthemum or My First Love Affair, is a Japanese film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita which was initially released in 1955. It is based on a novel by Saicho Ito.[1][2][3]

Plot

The film is set in the Meiji period.[4] The story tells of the forbidden romance between teenaged cousins Masao and Tamiko.[4] The lovers were also inhibited by a marriage arranged by her family for Tamiko and Masao needing to go away to school.[3] The story is essentially a flashback as remembered by the 73-year-old Masao, played by Chishū Ryū, as he rides a boat back to his home village where they first fell in love.[1][2][3][5]

Production

The flashback scenes were filmed using an oval-shaped mask typically associated with silent films.[3][4] According to Alexander Jacoby, this masking gives the film "an appropriately nostalgic tone."[4] Film critic Donald Richie describes the film style as representing "Meiji daguerrotypes."[2]

Reception

Jacoby rates She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum to be "among the most purely moving of Japanese films" despite its "occasional naivety."[4] He attributes this particularly to Kinoshota's "simple techniques," including "judicious choice of camera position," and to the excellent performances.[4] Richie regards the film as one of Kinoshita's "most successful" in his later style.[2] Joseph L. Anderson praises the film's photography, particularly the "rich blacks" and Kinoshita's "evocation of [the] area."[3] Jacek Kloiowski, et al., regard the film as "one of the most sincere and purest films of its type in Japanese cinema," noting that it marks a return to "pastoral lyricism" for Kinoshota after focusing his films on social issues for the previous few years.[5]

Awards

Cinematographer Hiroshi Kusuda won the Mainichi Film Award for cinematography in 1956 for his work on She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum and another Kinoshita–directed film, The Tattered Wings.[6] He also won the Blue Ribbon Award for cinematography for the same two films.[7]

References

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