A Desperate Housewife: Yoshitaro Nomura's Zero Focus

Yoshitaro Nomura's Zero Focus (1961) begins with an ending; not the film's ending, but the end of a relationship, though this is unbeknownst to either partner at the moment. Teiko (Yoshiko Kuga) is at a Tokyo train station seeing off her new husband Kenichi (Koji Nambara) as he leaves to oversee the transfer of his position in an advertising agency to a new hire. He tells his wife that he will be back in a few days. Those days pass quickly for the young woman and as the third day comes and goes, then the fourth and the fifth, she becomes increasingly worried.

Inquiries to the agency turn up nothing, so Teiko travels to Kanazawa and decides to investigate her husband's apparent disappearance herself, her only clues being two postcards she finds amongst her husbands belongings. Once in Kanazawa, Teiko has the assistance of Honda (Takanobu Hozumi), another employee at the ad agency, and together they track down Kenichi's last known whereabouts. Their investigation will lead them from an upper class client of the husband, Mr. Murota(Yoshi Kato), and his wife Sachiko (Hizaru Takachiho), to a transient boarding house, to the harshly beautiful Noto Cliff. The deeper she digs, the more she learns about not only her husband's past, but also a second life he has been leading.

It would be unfair to give more of the plot away, as much of Zero Focus's pleasure is derived from taking Teiko's journey along with her. The flashback-heavy structure commands constant attention as we try to piece together Kenichi's back story and double life along with the heroine. As such, the film unfolds as a mystery, but its style is very much like that of an old-style woman's melodrama, from the various plot revelations to the romantic score by Yasushi Akutagawa. Nomura and source novelist Seicho Matsumato also do a fantastic job of jerking the viewer's emotions around in the film's final third as the audience identification figure shifts not once, but twice, each time to a more damaged soul.

Zero Focus takes place almost entirely during winter, and the snowy landscapes and slushy streets are vividly captured by Takashi Kawamata's widescreen black and white photography. Home Vision's new dvd presents these 2.35 images beautifully well. The higher registers of the score seem a little wobbly, but this is certainly due to the original elements and is not really a distraction. Extras are light (a trailer and a filmography for Nomura), but, as always, the film's thing and HVE have another winner here. (HVE have simultaneously released Nomura's 1978 The Demon; look for a review here next week.)