A pair of blind masseurs, an enigmatic city woman, a lonely man and his ill-behaved nephew—The Masseurs and a Woman is made up of crisscrossing miniature studies of love and family at a remote resort in the mountains. With delicate and surprising humor, Hiroshi Shimizu paints a timeless portrait of loneliness and the human need to connect.
Mieko Takamine Shin Tokudaiji Shinichi Himori Bakudan Kozo Shin Saburi Ayuko Hirano Toru Hirose Takeshi Sakamoto Hideko Kasuga Zentaro Iijima Shotaro Akagi Akio Isono Toshiaki Konoe Chieko Kyotani Fusako Maki Mitsuko Miura Hiroshi Mizuhara Masako Nakaido Ren Niki Tsuneo Ohsugi Kaoru Seki Munenobu Yui Jun Yokoyama
Anma to onna, Une femme et ses masseurs, Los masajistas y una mujer, Массажисты и женщина, 안마와 여자, 按摩师与女人
Japan
Japan
"They count how many people they overtake every day; they take great pride in it."
My second encounter with the work of Japanese auteur Hiroshi Shimizu confirms my initial analysis and engenders further curiosity. As was the case with the lovely Japanese Girls at the Harbor, what most distinguishes The Masseurs and a Woman (按摩と女) is Shimizu's flair for adroitly balancing ebullience and heartache.
To a certain extent, both films revolve around the insulated bond between two artless young adults of the same gender whose simplicity is challenged by contact with the outside world—in this case a pair of blind masseurs called Toku (Shin Tokudaiji) and Fuku (Shinichi Himori), whose seeming essence lies in their vaunted aptitude for outstripping sighted pedestrians…
Life is a matter of bumping into each other and what one does or not after it. As often with Shimizu actions can feel definitive while his touch couldn't be more gentle. It makes the best out of its suspended setting and includes some outstanding shots.
One of the loneliest films I've ever seen. I'm beginning to see a trend with Shimizu---create a lighthearted, breezy surface, then slowly and methodically break it down to reveal greater truths about human suffering. Here he explores the concept of sight; specifically, our (in)ability to see our true selves, and how this affects our perception of others and our ability to connect with them. The initially alluring mountain getaway resort dissolves into nothing but a hotbed of isolation in its many forms...your eyes have deceived you. Dreams don't come true. It's time to return to Tokyo.
After I finished this I had to take a few moments to do nothing but sit and reflect. I realized the film had tapped…
“She had the scent of Tokyo.”
Hiroshi Shimizu’s direction feels.. different. Not exactly a comedy, even if it feels very comedic. No major exaggerations or ridiculous plot points, almost like a Charlie Chaplin film without the slapstick. There is this strange underlying presence of seriousness that penetrates every minute. It’s not exactly satire either - I’m not sure how to describe it, I can’t compare it to anything. Maybe similar in some ways to Yasujiro Ozū or Billy Wilder.. but still far removed from their direction.
Perplexing piece of cinema.
A film about companionship at heart. Toku and Fuku really had a beautiful form of lightheartedness to them, both very amusing and somewhat careless. The dialogue is what unmasked the movie for me and it brought out some good character development by the end.
Overall,
My second entry of his. Wouldn’t say it holds up technically, but pretty good for what it is. Mostly I’m really impressed with the direction of Hiroshi Shimizu.
#26 - Hiroshi Shimizu from Japanuary Challenge 2024
Progress: 39/35
"It's as if we could see."
"Together? / Heavens, no!"
"Wanna fight?"
"Humph!"
"No, these eyes never deceive me."
"Anma to onna" aka "The Masseurs and a Woman" was a fairly simple, funny and enjoyable movie, IMO.
The plot/narrative is actually interesting, mixing a bit of drama, romance and comedy, also a bit of mystery to the proceedings. The movie is relatively short (just over one hour) and the pace/flow is good/great.
(A young and alluring) Mieko Takamine leads the way here and Shin Saburi is also around.
Something must be said of the shooting for the release time.
Soundtrack was also quite engaging.
The movie has lots of funnier…
Gentle, unassuming little gem. My first Hiroshi Shimizu, but it certainly won't be my last.
“It’s a great feeling to pass the people we can’t see, only the blind can understand that pleasure.”
“I bumped into some horses and dogs though.”
“That’s because you were careless. But when we bump into people it’s because they’re careless. Sighted people these days are especially careless.”
The Masseurs and a Woman is a story about people, or more specifically people and their feelings. Shimizu plays between the boundaries of literal and figurative meaning of feeling(s) in order to convey a moral in a very light-handed way. He follows, in an idyllic remote village, two blind masseurs, an uncle with his orphaned nephew and a woman from Tokyo. They are central to the film and the actual plot about…
Unsaid goodbyes, unseen smiles and moving reflections on an ever-flowing river. Unspeakably beautiful and impossible to really define, this film is funny, flimsy and sad, hard to really grasp, it is always just sliding and slipping and fleeting. A woman who ran, two friends joking around, a man looking for love and his nephew looking for excitement, small moments of life that keep unfolding around us... They all go by so fast.
Beginning with an almost disarmingly light tone during a brisque stroll with two blind masseurs casually discussing the joys of passing hikers who can see and competing to see who can more accurately guess the size of a group walking in the other direction, The Masseurs and a Woman quickly sets the viewers expectations for the idyllic mountain retreat only to slowly subvert them by revealing the sense of isolation and pain that it's major players attempt to hide. Aside from the two masseurs, there are the beautiful and mysterious woman from Tokyo and a man and his nephew. Amidst the masseurs struggles to literally and figuratively navigate their surroundings, the woman's attempts to both connect with (via the uncle)…
Shimizu Hiroshi’s tranquil brilliance is at display again in THE MASSEURS AND A WOMAN. Societal observations are delivered in a heartfelt, humorous manner, without making these observations any less piercing. The cinematography emphasizing these traits is beautiful and unobtrusive. Shimizu, like in MR. THANK YOU, chooses to tell a story confined to a well-defined space. A bus in the aforementioned film, an onsen town up in the mountains in THE MASSEURS AND A WOMAN.
The characters are drawn and developed in an equally skillful way. These characters include a wandering woman from Tokyo; two blind masseurs who find great pride in passing people who can see (The masseurs note that “sighted people these days are especially careless”) and an uncle…
So modest, so beautiful. Just a few people passing each other on the street, a few lives slightly disturbing each other in passing. Some of those people might follow up on some of those disturbances, but sooner or later everyone will hit the road again. Blindness might sharpen one´s sense of morality, but it´s also a good setup for jokes. A film that consist of nothing but small movements, and still arrives at one of the most heartbreaking moments of rainy loneliness I can think of.
One thing that really hits me in all those Shimizu films is the omnipresence of prostitution, not as full-blown melodrama like in Mizoguchi, but as a mostly implicit threat, like an invisible sword of fate hanging over the head of every single woman on screen.
