is a 1964 Japanese

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...

based on a novel by Sawako Ariyoshi and directed by

Keisuke Kinoshita was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi an ...

. Screened in two parts, it was one of Kinoshita's last cinema productions before working mainly for television.

Plot

Spanning in time from the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

(1904–1905) to the post

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

era, ''The Scent of Incense'' depicts the ongoing conflicts in the troubled relationship between Tomoko and her mother Ikuyo. Ikuyo, who is about to remarry, leaves Tomoko with her grandmother Tsuna, only to sell her to a geisha house after Tsuna's death. When the women meet again, Ikuyo has herself turned to prostitution. Tomoko, now a geisha, starts a relationship with cadet Ezaki with the prospect of marriage, but his family denies its approval due to Ikuyo's profession. Having become independent as the

madam Madam (), or madame ( or ), is a polite and formal form of address for women in the English language, often contracted to ma'am (pronounced in American English and this way but also in British English). The term derives from the French ''madam ...

of her own geisha house, Tomoko loses her property in the 1923 earthquake. While her mother marries a third time, this time former servant Hachiran, Tomoko refuses the offer of Nozawa to become his mistress. Amidst the ruins of a bomb-ridden Tokyo, where Tomoko and Ikuyo live in a cellar, the mother is reunited with Hachiran who had gone missing during the Second World War. Tomoko hears of the imprisonment and death sentence of Ezaki for a war crime, but when she is finally admitted to visit him in jail after months of waiting, he pretends not to know her. After Ikuyo's death in a traffic accident while Tomoko is in hospital, Hachiran returns to his home town. The film closes with Tomoko having Ikuyo's name added to the family shrine, suggesting her coming to peace with her mother.

Cast

Mariko Okada is a Japanese stage and film actress who starred in films of directors Mikio Naruse, Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita and others. She was married to film director Yoshishige Yoshida. Biography Okada was born the daughter of silent film actor T ...

as Tomoko *

Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese actress who appeared in more than 100 films between 1950 and 1994. A graduate of Takarazuka Girl's Opera School, Otowa was first signed to Daiei studios, before becoming a freelance actress by the early 1950s. After starring i ...

as Ikuyo *

Kinuyo Tanaka was a Japanese actress and film director. She had a career lasting over 50 years with more than 250 acting credits, but was best known for her 15 films with director Kenji Mizoguchi, such as ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952) and ''Ugetsu'' (1953). W ...

as Tsuna *

Go Kato Go, GO, G.O., or Go! may refer to: Arts and entertainment Games and sport * Go (game), a board game for two players * ''Travel Go'' (formerly ''Go – The International Travel Game''), a game based on world travel * Go, the starting position lo ...

as Ezaki *

Haruko Sugimura was a Japanese stage and film actress, best known for her appearances in the films of Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Biography Sugimura was born in Nishi-ku, Hiroshima. After the death of her parents, ...

as Taromaru *

Eiji Okada was a Japanese film actor from Chōshi, Chiba. Okada served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and was a miner and traveling salesman before becoming an actor. Internationally, his best-remembered roles include Lui ("him" in Fre ...

as Nozawa *

Kazuo Kitamura was a Japanese actor. His son is actor Yukiya Kitamura. Kitamura met Shōhei Imamura when he was a student of Waseda University and became a close friend so often worked with Imamura. Kitamura joined Bungakuza theatre company and started his acti ...

as Keisuke * Norihei Miki as Hachiran

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Scent of Incense, The 1964 films Japanese drama films 1960s Japanese-language films Japanese black-and-white films Films based on Japanese novels Films directed by Keisuke Kinoshita 1964 drama films 1960s Japanese films