The Image of Heat

I watched my favourite summer movie last night, Kurosawa Akira's 1949 detective movie Stray Dog (野良犬). Even back in San Diego, it was a sympathetic companion on blazing hot days. Now that I live in Japan, experiencing the more humid heat for a summer with a rainy season, the movie's an even better friend.

Of course, there was no air conditioning in 1949 Tokyo. That scene where Murakami interviews the girl in the police box, with the tin roof another character remarks on makes it like an oven, visually captures the muggy misery so perfectly. You can feel how that poor girl is just smooshed by the god of humidity.

Before that, there's Mifune Toshiro just soaked with sweat as he goes through records. Sweat stains are really taboo now in Japan but not in 1949 I guess. You can see sweat stains going through the armpit of his jacket. Not as badly as Bill Paxton in Predator 2 but it's still impressive.

The movie also makes me really thirsty for beer so I had some Sapporo while I watched. It's a good thing I prefer Japanese beer because you can't seem to get imported beer in Japan, though there's all the familiar whiskey brands from Scotland, Ireland, and the U.S. Kurosawa's Drunken Angel makes me want whiskey but in Stray Dog there's the scene where Murakami pursues the pickpocket all day until they finish at a beer joint and she gives up, bringing him a bottle of beer to where he sulks outside and they both look up at the stars.

This is just before the famous 11 minute sequence with all the actual footage of post-war Tokyo. Mifune in a ragged uniform, desperately searching the crowds for someone who sells guns. But maybe the scene that best sells the heat is the one of all the sweaty, exhausted dancing girls. I guess the biggest flaw in he film is Awaji Keiko as one of those girls, the one who ends up being the killer's girlfriend. I remember hearing how, no matter what Kurosawa did, Awaji just failed to express any of the emotions any scene called on her to express, and Awaji later said she regretted being so difficult. It's extraordinary to see from an actress in a major film, but such extreme emotional reserve is not uncommon in Japan even to-day.

I guess I'll be going back out into that heat to-day. Maybe I'll be lucky and the rain will kick in.

X Sonnet #1865

The heavy gavel hides a broken clock.
A vase conceals a spy who waters plants.
The ancient wreck was hid beneath a dock.
The Mighty Thor's disguise was purple pants.
A doubled sky obscures the mirror lake.
A war was hid behind a word for "late".
An abacus was hid within a cake.
Accountants keep a hidden dinner slate.
A secret question looms behind the moot.
Compartments kept the smuggled danger space.
A rubber knife was strapped inside the boot.
On Yavin's moon, they built a Rebel base.
Concealed behind the screen's the mask of Pan.
Revealed above the ocean, sirens swam.