william d
There's a kid in this movie who constantly complains about being bored. I can relate.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
shimizu is a director i'm just starting to explore but so far he displays a charming lyrical touch. the film takes place at a mountain resort and revolves around the interactions of patrons there with a couple of blind masseurs. gently comical with a streak of heartache
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
Full Review
walter m
Toku(Shin Tokudaiji) and Fuku(Shinichi Himori) make great time hiking along a road, passing quite a few of their fellow travelers, even without their sight, on their way to work as masseurs at a spa. Toku is engaged by Okiku(Hideko Kasuga), from Tokyo, for a session before getting a measure of revenge on a group of students who had the temerity to pass them earlier in the day.
"The Masseurs and a Woman" is a sweet, gentle movie. While there may not seem that much going on at first, there is actually just below the surface, including a subplot about a thief that injects a little tension into the proceedings. Best of all, the movie seeks to take apart stereotypes concerning the blind by neatly pointing out that they can take care of themselvwes, both emotionally and physically.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
The most entertaining part in this witty, humorous drama is the purpose of each character. Each of them comes to the mountains for a purpose, yet each of them encounters the same thing: loneliness. Wrapped in such an unique photographic techniques such as deep of field to emphasize a subject, the filmmakers succeed in building a character-focused plot, thus delivering the film with a surprisingly good outcome (coming from an unknown director).
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/20/23
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Audience Member
A delicate flower of a film, as seemingly spare as a Japanese print, yet implying more than meets the eye. Some things I loved included spectacular shots of nature contextualizing human bodies and faces in naturalistic way. Humor was all out sweet and subtle, physical comedy with subtle meanings about society, and even subtler meaning evoked in mystery at heart of story. Faintly luminous, a capture of pre-war Japan, beautifully balanced leaving a precisely gentle after-echo in one's thoughts and feelings. One or two moments seemed to lift off the screen, combination of bodies moving, camera movie, setting, context, all fusing in graceful ballet. Unique and easy to hold to the heart and wonder why all films are not as optimistic about being.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
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Audience Member
To many people, the saying that beauty is only skin deep seems pretty straight-forward; indeed, how could one truly appreciate the wonder that is nature be it in the form of a mountain, a spring or indeed a beautiful woman from Tokyo without the ability to even view these things as they appear to the eye? Anma to Omna, which translates roughly to Masseurs and a Woman comes from director Hiroshi Shimzu who takes this idea of beauty as an entity known only to the beholder and transposes it to the first-person view of blind masseurs as they visit a small town and get caught up in the goings on of their customers around them. The remainder of the film plays out like a whodunit, noir-type mystery after some money goes missing from the local inn's rooms and it's intriguing enough, but such a plot always takes a backseat to character and nuance in tone created from putting emphasis on the senses.
The result is a uniquely somber and reflective piece of film that ebbs and flows with the pace regarded as the norm back in the day (though viewers watching now some seventy years later, may find the pacing unbearably slow) yet subdues this distinctly meditative tone with a light-hearted sense of humour and charm. Indeed, while Masseurs and a Woman will only take up little over an hour of your time, despite not much transpiring over this hour at such a pace, Shimzu manages to pack his screentime with enough character and imagery to make a lasting impression. The biggest highlight to this comes in the form of lead character Toku who embodies Shimzu's themes perfectly, mixing a compelling use of humour, charm and emotion to a satisfying degree for its time.
Consequently coming to a conclusion that aptly draws upon the entire feature's sense of futile irony in regards to its attention to detail and beautiful cinematography for the eyes to digest, Anma to Omna achieves what it sets out to do almost effortlessly. It's a delicate, almost easy to overlook gem from a country that was about to go headfirst into a war that would change both its social climate and subsequently of course, its cinematic landscape in tow. Indeed, while there is very little social commentary going on here in contrast to much of the country's later works, there's still a fair amount to take in here, which paradoxically comes from the movie's distilling sense of tranquility and minimalist pace.
Drawing to a close poignantly, Toku consoles the beautiful Woman from Tokyo with his suspicion that she is responsible for the thefts happening in the town; "you may fool those who can see", he begins, "but you can't fool me. Though blind, I have been watching you."-of course Toku eventually finds his theory debunked, but this, we in turn find, has nothing to do with his lack of sight, and yet, has everything to do with it at the same time. Beauty it seems, can overcome anyone, regardless of how well they may be able to see it.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
Full Review
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