The Eternal Breasts

The Eternal Breasts
Ryōji Hayama and Yumeji Tsukioka
Japanese name
Kanji乳房よ永遠なれ
Directed byKinuyo Tanaka
Written by
Produced by
  • Hideo Koi
  • Shizuo Sakagami
Starring
CinematographyKumenobu Fujioka
Edited byKimihiko Nakamura
Music byTakanobu Saitō
Production
company
Distributed byNikkatsu
Release date
  • 23 November 1955 (1955-11-23) (Japan)[1][2]
Running time
110 minutes[1][2]
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

The Eternal Breasts (乳房よ永遠なれ, Chibusa yo eien nare), also titled Forever a Woman, is a 1955 Japanese drama film directed by actress Kinuyo Tanaka. It is based on the life of tanka poet Fumiko Nakajō (1922–1954).[3]

Plot

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Unhappily married Fumiko, mother of two children, divorces her drug-addicted husband after an incident which she regards as an act of unfaithfulness, and moves back to her mother. At the same time, she tries to find her voice as a poet, regularly attending a poetry circle, encouraged by her married tutor Hori, whom she loves with a respectful distance. While struggling with the divorce and the fact that she could only take her daughter with her, she is diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer. She undergoes a double mastectomy, which she writes about in a series of widely noticed and prize-winning poems, and tries to live her life as freely as possible and as her illness allows. She has a short affair with journalist Ōtsuki, who writes about her in a newspaper series before she finally dies.

Cast

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Reception

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The Eternal Breasts is unanimously highly regarded for its directorial skills, yet film scholars differ in their evaluation of the themes addressed in the film. While Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández calls it "a daring depiction of female sexuality […] as well as a powerful instance of women's creativity and self-expression",[4] Alexander Jacoby sees the "feminist and progressive" theme of a woman willingly choosing career over marriage obscured by the film's concentration on her illness, thus shying away from the more controversial implications.[5]

Legacy

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The Eternal Breasts has seen repeated screenings at festivals and film museums in the US,[6] in France[7] and in Germany.[8] The British Film Institute included the film in its 2020 The best Japanese film of every year – from 1925 to now list.[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b "乳房よ永遠なれ (The Eternal Breasts)". Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese). Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  2. ^ a b "乳房よ永遠なれ (The Eternal Breasts)". Kinenote (in Japanese). Retrieved 10 June 2023.
  3. ^ Sato, Hiroaki (2015). Japanese Women Poets: An Anthology. Milton Park and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7656-1783-5.
  4. ^ a b "The best Japanese film of every year – from 1925 to now at the British Film Institute website". British Film Institute. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
  5. ^ Jacoby, Alexander (2008). Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors: From the Silent Era to the Present Day. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press. ISBN 978-1-933330-53-2.
  6. ^ "To Save and Project: The 18th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation" (PDF). Museum of Modern Art. 2022. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  7. ^ "Maternité éternelle". Festival Lumière (in French). 2021. Archived from the original on 16 October 2021. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  8. ^ "Eternal Breasts". Nippon Connection. 2022. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
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Bibliography

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  • González-López, Irene; Smith, Michael, eds. (2018). Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-0969-8.
  • Berra, John, ed. (2012). Directory of World Cinema: Japan2. Bristol and Chicago: Intellect. ISBN 978-1-84150-551-0.
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