A
Ball at the Anjo House is a post-war film that depicts a once noble, financially
respectable house in shambles as external circumstance relating to the war and
domestic politics drastically altered their family’s standing. The main
ensemble consists of a family dressed in delusions and self-pity, as they
feebly try to convince themselves their circumstances truly are not as bad as
they seem (and actually were). There is no real “protagonist”, save for perhaps
Hara Setsuko’s character Atsuko acting as the catalyst for the film’s featured
event, a house ball. However instead, the Anjo family seems to share duties in
portraying their situation to the audience, culminating in an incredibly
wayward family party where the invited guests are none too happy to be in
attendance and the hosting family are mired in a vulnerable financial position so
precarious that the dance they are even hosting may have been too expensive for
them to have afforded.
To summarize, the Anjo family somewhat humiliates itself during the
duration of the party, but in doing so also achieve some awkwardly deluded
liberty from the social anxiety they have been feeling growing effects from. The
ball plays out in a slightly passive-aggressive manner, portraying the party
and its goers as the epitome of rumor-ridden pomp and circumstance. The primary
attendee, a pseudo black marketeer named Shinkawa, slyly treats the entire
gathering as an insult, and stops at no short break to counter insults onto the
Anjo family at any given opportunity. The Anjo family themselves deal with
their separate plotlines; Tadahiko (the father) tries to save the house with
sentimentality as his currency; Atsuko (the daughter) tries to make everyone
happy by convincing them they have some superficial happiness available to
them; Akiko (another daughter) bemoans her fate of privileged class preventing
her from loving a socially inferior house chauffer until apparently it does not
matter; Masahiko (the son) uses his womanizing streak to wreak spiteful chaos
on the black marketeer’s daughter, with ironically some success.
With
all that said, each separate thread seems to converge at a hilariously
misleading climax. The chauffeur, named Toyama, somehow “buys” the house by
returning the loaned amount to Shinkawa (I am still not sure how this was logistically
achieved), and drunkenly rambles a speech about how all those privileged snooty
party-goers were all terrible people (which was admittedly true). The Anjo
family, due to likely some form of mental gymnastics, take solace in this
speech. Atsuko applauds it for being a public announcement of their house being
theirs again, Masahiko applauds it for likewise convoluted reasons about spite.
And Akiko takes it as Toyama’s mating call, where she finally abandons that
social class visage that was apparently clouding her judgement in favor of
pursuing her romance with him again, of which we never conclusively see any evidence
of going anywhere. And the father, Tadahiko, takes the conveniently placed spotlight
opportunity to announce to the party that he is marrying a geisha and deriding
his own social class in the process. This was met with - delayed - thunderous
applause. The scene, however, is played off as an ironic “win” for the Anjo
family. Everybody in the Anjo family kinda-sorta-but-not-really gets what they
want: deluded liberation from the social expectations and a big clap-back in
the face of all the snobbery they have been facing.
Before
going further, I must explain what I mean by “deluded liberation.” To be blunt,
the Anjo family is completely delusional about their situation. In the very beginning, there is an obvious
subdued depressing cloud that exists over the family, but at the same time
their words do not reflect their emotions. They, specifically Atsuko, prattle
on about how their financial situation was not as bad as it seemed and their
social prospects were likewise still respectable. These were of course very
untrue. They were essentially broke (the ball they had cost them far more than
they actually had to afford it). They were now socially outcasts, treated as
some pathetic fall-from-grace family by their social class peers. They had no
appreciable future work prospects or available outlets for income. To be even
more blunt and succinct, they were a poor laughing stock. So, with the advent
of their ball, they had deluded themselves into thinking that everything would
work out somehow, despite zero evidence or basis to think that.
The
greater cosmic irony of the story is that it kind of did. The individual family
members’ themselves were still steeped in misery, financial issues and social
rejection, but their collective family qualm of not being able to stay together
at their house and pretend everything would be ok was essentially solved. They
got their house back, they could stay together, and they no longer needed to
keep up pretenses with those of their class because quite frankly they already
threw away any chance of getting back respect anyhow. And that is where I think
the melodrama angle comes in, that a family so tragically deep in its own state
of decay can piece back together their “big picture” to survive as a family by
humiliating themselves is wonderfully melodramatic.
This
particularly comes across when Tadahiko, the father, attempts suicide. Saved by
his daughter, he allows his emotional turmoil to bubble to the surface. He
shows that really deep down he knew how terrible everything was and that he
should just take the easy way out of his problems. This is despite having
actually “won” so to speak. He got back his house, married someone he somewhat
loved, and protected his family from falling apart. In any traditional drama,
this would be the scene where he sits in some big chair with a cigar in his
mouth and makes some endearing quip about how families and homes are only as
stable as their social status or some other mockery of their situation.
Instead, their victory is like a defeat for him. And in fact, their victory is
a defeat for them all. Masahiko loses his love with Yoko because he used his
womanizing ways for the good of his family, the poor fella. Akiko legitimately
just disappears with Toyama, and it would not be a stretch to say they may have
committed double suicide. The butler is
leaving them as he can no longer be afforded, and the family has to look for
actual jobs (which apparently they never even needed!)
Their
big collective problem that they solved as a family really masked the
underlying issues that they were too delusional to deal with. And their
character interactions epitomized why that fragile misery at the very end of
the film is a consequence of them coming to terms that the ball was perhaps the
worst thing for them, because it shattered their delusions and brought them
back to reality. They were broke, socially detested, and woefully mentally
unprepared.
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