Suna no Utsuwa (砂の器)

Back in secondary school, at the beginning of each term we were given a reading list that we were required to write a book report for every month. One year the list included Seicho Matsumoto (松本清張), thus marked my introduction to the great Japanese detective novelist. Admittedly my first with Seicho Matsumoto was all in the name of a school grade and it failed to leave a very favorable impression in me. For his stories usually involved mundane events of unexciting characters, it lacked the colourful heroes that you would find in Sherlock Holmes or 衛斯理. Little did I know that that is precisely his works's claim to fame.



“Suna no Utsuwa” (砂之器) reportedly was one of the three most famous works by Seicho Matsumoto (松本清張), whose place in Japanese’s literature was assured for introducing ‘socialism’ into the detective story genre. In that regard I think “Suna no Utsuwa” succeeded. However, in term of the intriguing clues and clever revelation that mystery-novel buffs have come to expect, I am afraid the book is a disappointment. Not that the hero, Inspector Imanishi, is not a meticulous investigator. On the contrary he is very methodical when it comes to his trade. However, the evidences he collected, and they are in abundance, are so far-fetched and relied on conjectures and coincidence that you will need to be Spider-man in order to leap over the gaps from one to another. For instance, one of the most important clues he has are the blood-stained shredded cloths he painstakingly collected along a train track three months after the crime. Let’s suspend our disbelief that he can collect the said (untainted) evidence after such a long period of time has elapsed, the fact that it was left behind by a girl he has never met in person, whose sole description he has is that she bears a resemblance to the legendary actress Mariko Okada (岡田茉莉子) (Incidentally, I’ve met Ms. Okada in person last year when she and her director husband Yoshishige Yoshida (吉田喜重) were invited to a local university for a revival film series of their movies and she had something interesting to say about fellow legend Setsuko Hara (原節子) but that is a different story) , and the subsequent death of the said person means there is no solid link that the evidence found is indeed left by the girl in question. Furthermore he never managed to establish a connection between the girl and the suspect. With facts as disparate as these it will require an extreme stretch of imagination in order to connect the dots.

The book ends abruptly with the police closing in to arrest the suspect. There is no confession from the accused or reenactment of the actual crime. It could argue that because the Seicho Matsumoto wanted to show his sympathy for the suspect since he himself is also a victim of circumstance. However, the better explanation could be that the murder is solved not so much by the hero’s investigation but because that is what the author told the reader so and we just have to take it as a leap of faith. The truth is even if all the evidences collected were laid on the table, the case still wouldn’t build under cross examination unless the author himself testifies in the courtroom.

I don’t want to give the impression that I am knocking the book because as a criticism of the deep seeded discrimination within a rigid and hidebound society, as a depiction of the struggle in a culture where one’s success isn’t so much decided by talent and hard work but by pedigree, as a social commentary on the value clash between the old and the new in the post-war Japan, “Suna no Utsuwa” is not without its merit and should be judged by its own standard. It is just that the morality part of the story doesn’t integrate with the detective mystery framework as sound as it could have.

"Suna no Utsuwa" the novel was published in 1961. Over the years it has been adapted to TV multiple times but just once, in 1975, it was made into a feature length movie. "Suna no Utsuwa" the movie was directed by Yoshitaro Nomura (野村芳太郎), who was critically acclaimed in his native country but relatively obscure outside of Japan. Thus even though his version of Suna no Utsuwa was considered locally a masterpiece in Japanese cinema, it has not been in circulation in U.S. after its initial release. Thus it was to my surprise a library in a neighboring town actually carries a DVD copy of the movie.



From the spec of the DVD, the original aspect ratio of the movie is supposed to be 1:61:1 but it obviously has been modified for the DVD:


Notice that the bar waitress being interrogated has been completely edited out of the frame.


The DVD seems to be manufactured in Hong Kong and that might explain the spotty translation for the Chinese subtitle. For instance, when Inspector Imanishi investigates the background of the murder victim, the subtitle has changed the name of an old acquaintance of the victim from Kirihara (桐原) to Kahara (華原).




By the way, the actor who played Mr. Kirihara is the very prolific character actor Chishû Ryû (笠智衆), who has appeared in almost every major Japanese movie during the sound era up to his death but he is most famous for the part of the father (later widower) in Yasujiro Ozu's (小津安二郎) Tōkyō Monogatari (東京物語).

Playing the movie's hero Inspector Imanishi is international superstar Tetsuro Tanba (丹波哲郎). Perhaps most famous in US for the role of Tiger Tanaka in the James Bond franchise “You Only Live Twice”, the young Tamba could be a dead ringer for 陳豪.



Around the same time of “Suna no Utsuwa”, Tetsuro Tamba also starred in the Shaws Brothers epic adaptation of 《水滸傳》 as 盧俊義. The Chinese Wiki has it that Tetsuro Tamba is ethnically Chinese and descended from 漢靈帝. Curiously such information is missing in any other language of Wiki that I am aware of. Chances are this tidbit is just an urban legend and should be taken with a grain of salt. In "Suna no Utsuwa" Tetsuro Tamba ditched his tough guy persona to play a more low key, dedicated workhouse (notice how the director has Inspector Imanishi constantly sweats throughout his exhasutive inquiry) who is ultimately unrewarded and underappreciated, a common theme in Matsumoto’s novels.



Another discrepancy is when Detective Imanishi investigate the hotel the murder victim has stayed, the hotel hostess clearly said that the victim has visited Toba (鳥羽) but the Chinese translation said Chiba (千葉)

DVD quality aside, one thing “Suna no Utsuwa” the movie improved over on the book is tightening up many of the (implausible) loose ends in the story. For instance, it has added the confrontation scene below between Reiko, the aforementioned girl, and Detective Yoshimura, assistance to inspector Imanishi. By having an actual personal contact between the pursuer and the pursued, it gives something tangible to the investigation.



Reiko is actually a composite of two characters in the book. By combining them into one character, the movies has shortened the degree of separation between the suspect and Inspector Imanishi, further improve the credibility of the investigation. Reiko was played by Yoko Shimada (島田陽子), famous in US as the female lead in the US-Japanese collaboration of the TV mini-series "Shogun". Detective Yoshimura in the movie is a much bigger part compared with the book. It was played by Kensaku Morita (森田健作), who might be remembered in Hong Kong for the 70s Japanese series おれは男だ! (女校男生).



Kensaku Morita is one of the rare examples of showbiz-celebrity-turn-politicians in Japan. Today he serves as the governor of Chiba, the Prefecture my sister is living in.

What truly distinguish “Suna no Utsuwa” the movie is its extended flashback sequence that details the history of the suspect. Intertwined throughout the performance of a piano concerto, this mostly silent forty minutes passage serves to explain how the murderer comes to the where he is now. With its melancholic and broody melody, the movement is written to tug your heartstrings and it is also the major reason for the movie’s popularity. Titled Shukumei (宿命, or Destiny), the piece has a character of its own and provides the murderer an opportunity to present his side of the story, which was otherwise denied to him in the book.



Completed with a tearful farewell, the sequence took the extreme measure to ensure that no dry eyes have been left in the audience



Probably because the mystery aspect of the book is weak, the script writer has removed the ubiquitous mystery clichés of a red herring in the form of a fellow artist from the book; instead much of the drama are invested in background of the suspect (When there is just one suspect, there is really no whodunit). I have mixed feeling about the elimination of this character. While it does weed out some of the unnecessarily and unconvincing diversions in the book, it also removed a subtle point Seicho Matsumoto made: in the book both the suspect and the red herring hailed from the poor region of the country, a fact both are trying to hide. Both are young artists set out to conquer the status quo of the established norm, both have to make sacrifice of personal happiness along the way. In a sense both are escaping a ‘destiny’ that is handed to them by birth. By wiping out this character the movie has shifted the focus of the injustice to the under-privileged in the society to solely the prejudice against a disease. While it doesn’t exactly alter the theme, it does become lesser than the whole.