The Lady and the Beard (Shukujo to hige)

Live Musical Accompaniment
Screening on Film

Directed by Ozu Yasujiro.
With Okada Tokihiko, Kawasaki Hiroko, Iida Choko.
Japan, 1931, 35mm, black & white, silent, 75 min.
Japanese intertitles with English subtitles.
Print source: Janus Films

Kendo player and churlish traditionalist Okajima (Okada Tokihiko) sports a prominent beard, as well as a kimono and a pair of geta. His appearance and beliefs not only scare off the women he encounters, but they also hinder his ability to find a job as an office worker. Only good girl Hiroko (Kawasaki Hiroko) can convince him to change his facial hair, giving him a makeover reminiscent of The Taming of the Shrew. Once styled in a more conventional manner, Okajima softens and enters the workforce. The character of Okajima is an early iteration of a sporadically recurring Ozu archetype: a young person whose espousal of traditional ideals challenges the conflation of youth and modernity. That The Lady and the Beard frames Okajima’s conservativism as a social problem to be solved by employment and upward mobility demonstrates the extent of Ozu’s liberal humanism, complicating the image of Ozu as a politically passive filmmaker.
(Description by Kelley Dong)

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