Addict Recommends: (Film) Pale Flower (1964)

                I came across this film recently in the incomparable Turner Classic Movies on-demand library. I was familiar with the director Masahiro Shinoda through his film Silence, based on the novel by Shusako Endo. (Martin Scorsese also made a movie under the same title in 2016.) But I was completely unfamiliar with this film until I watched it. And man, was I glad that I did.

                Widely considered an outstanding example of the genre of international noir, Pale Flower is the story of Muraki, a Yakuza operative who has just been released from prison after a few years for the murder of a rival gang member. Returning to his roots, Muraki begins inhabiting his old world: the clandestine gambling halls, race tracks, pool halls, bowling alleys and bars of Tokyo. As a counterpoint to these seedy environs is Muraki’s young girlfriend Shinko, who has waited for him while he did his prison term.  She is pressuring him for a greater commitment and threatening to marry another pressing suitor. But Muraki’s interest has become greatly distracted by Saeko, a solitary, beautiful woman he met gambling. 

                Saeko convinces Muraki to bring her to a gambling den where she can play for higher stakes. Her compulsion urges her to wager larger and larger amounts to attain the high she desires. Muraki tries to watch over her and protect her from this world he understands all too well. But her true desire is to go further into addiction, to forget, to dig the hole ever deeper. When needle addict Yoh enters the scene, Saeko’s curiosity slowly attaches to him, with predictable results.

                Although the plot of Pale Flower is more than satisfactory to hold the viewer’s attention, what makes this film so compelling is its atmosphere: the sights, sounds and rituals of the illegal gambling dens, the dark, narrow alleys of the city which seem to press down on Muraki, the striking Saeko racing through the night with Muraki in her convertible and the brilliant musical score created by Toro Takemitsu. These are as much characters in the film as are the actors, and taken individually and as a whole they convey a feeling, an attitude of life on the edge.

                Although this is a space where one cannot long live, it is hard not to yearn to exist there if only for enough time to drink it all in.