Masako Natsume 夏目 雅子 – The Purity of Beauty
Masako Natsume 夏目 雅子 The Purity of Beauty
Films and TV probably don’t change lives but the right thing at the right time might just nudge you a little in one direction or another. Seeing ‘Monkey’ was a nudge for me and for many other people. The story was of an ape king, a kind of demon ape, wild, selfish riddled with megalomania and the lust for violence and sex, who is forced to offer his services to the monk Tripitaka on the trip to India to bring the Buddhist scriptures to the East.
Based upon the 16th century novel ‘Journey to the West’ (西遊記) by Wu Cheng’en (吴承恩), this Japanese adaptation of the story takes the folk traditions of the original and turn it into something we might recognise from the folk-story based pantomimes we might have watched each Christmas. As light as the series is, adopting the kind of special effects in vogue since the huge success of ‘Star Wars’ and it’s ilk, each story is suffused with Buddhist morality. A sequence of action-filled parables about how we are all essentially one nature and how recognising this raises us from the realm of demons into that of humanity and Gods and maybe even Buddhas. As in English pantomimes, some of the characters are played by the opposite sex of their original forms. The Buddha is played by a woman, Mieko Takamine, whereas the female Bodhisatva Kuan Yin, is played by the male actor, Suguro Homare. Most striking of course was that the boy monk Tripitaka is played by the incredibly beautiful Masako Natsume.
Masako Natsume died of leukaemia aged just 27. But her beauty is generally regarded as uniquely pure. Chris Marker, in his documentary, ‘Sans Soleil’ suggests that from all the horrors, ‘Natsume Masako arises. Absolute beauty has a name and a face’. And it’s not hard to see how so many were bewitched by her. I was researching background for this video and noted someone, on the internet, talking of how relieved he was to find that Tripitaka was really a woman as seeing this character had caused him to question his sexuality. In a bald wig, she still seems the epitome of pure femininity. The absolute yearned for in dreams. Transcending all with her clear deep eyes.
Her career did not begin and end with ‘Monkey’, although her fame outside of Japan almost certainly did. In Hideo Gosha’s Onimasa (鬼龍院花子の生涯) her reputation as an actress with real depth was enhanced… Although most of us could have seen, from other performances, that those who underestimated her talents were fools. In ‘Trucker Yaro Vl, I Am a Man of Honour’ (トラック野郎男一匹桃次郎) she played the comic foil and subject. And in the later film Time and Tide (時代屋の女房) she won the The Hochi Film Award (報知映画賞) for best actress playing two roles. It is, undoubtedly, her role in ‘Monkey’ upon which her reputation shall always rest. In hearing the cries of the world, her character has all the qualities of a Bodhisatva (a word that might have meant nothing to me if I had never seen this series). The stories, by showing that lack of reverence can sometimes be the greatest sign of respect, made me believe that Buddhism was more resilient than Christianity in being able to mock its most revered figures and still convey the message of the religion.
Don’t get me wrong. I would never call myself a Buddhist. I’m way too culturally enmeshed to be anything else but the most English of the English. But seeing this show did set me on a path that made travel to the far east an inevitability. I never heard Masako Natsume’s voice back then but through her beauty and the humour and clarity of ‘Monkey’ I had stumbled on a way of looking at the world that appealed to me deeply. And I know that I wasn’t the only one.
Contents
0:00 – Monkey Tripitaka amid flames
0:07 – Truck Yaro: Otoko Ippiki Momojiro
0:10 – Monkey from the hat
0:12 – Onimasa Mesh
0:20 – Monkey Tripitaka Head Shake
0:27 – Onimasa Kanashimi
0:42 – Truck Yaro: Otoko Ippiki Momojiro Following to the ends of the earth
0:52 – Monkey Praying amidst the mayhem
1:17 – Onimasa Prayer
1:36 – Monkey Being still in Jigoku
2:07 – Time and Tide Bringing back forgotten things
2:29 – Monkey Maybe he knows something we don’t
2:46 – Onimasa I had important things to tell you
3:33 – Truck Yaro: Otoko Ippiki Momojiro Sakurajima
3:39 – Onimasa Sadness under a parasol
4:12 – Monkey leading Tripitaka on Horse
4:21 – Truck Yaro: Otoko Ippiki Momojiro Sakurajima 2
4:29 – Kissing Monkey and collage
5:08 – Monkey Tripitaka chiding and punishing
Music: The Girl from Saint-Anne-des-Plaines by The Mini Vandals
Glass Chinchilla by The Mini Vandals
#夏目雅子 #masakonatsume #西遊記 #Saiyūki #journeytothewest #monkey #journeytothewest #1978television #japanesetv #japanesemovies