The Eternal Breasts (乳房よ永遠なれ, Chibusa yo eien nare), also titled Forever a Woman, is a 1955 Japanese drama film and the third film directed by actress Kinuyo Tanaka. It is based on the life of tanka poetess Fumiko Nakajō (1922–1954).[3]
The Eternal Breasts | |
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![]() Ryōji Hayama and Yumeji Tsukioka in The Eternal Breasts | |
Japanese | 乳房よ永遠なれ |
Directed by | Kinuyo Tanaka |
Written by | Sumie Tanaka |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Kumenobu Fujioka |
Edited by | Kimihiko Nakamura |
Music by | Takanobu Saitō |
Production company | Nikkatsu |
Distributed by | Nikkatsu |
Release date |
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Running time | 110 minutes[1] |
Country | Japan |
Language | Japanese |
Unhappily married Fumiko, mother of two children, divorces her drug-addicted husband after an incident which she regards as an act of unfaithfulness, and moves back to her mother. At the same time, she tries to find her voice as a poetess, regularly attending a poetry circle, encouraged by her married tutor Hori, whom she loves with a respectful distance. While struggling with the divorce and the fact that she could only take her daughter with her, she is diagnosed with late stage breast cancer. She undergoes a double mastectomy, which she writes about in a series of widely noticed and prize-winning poems, and tries to live her life as freely as possible and as her illness allows. She has a short affair with journalist Ōtsuki, who writes about her in a newspaper series, before she finally dies.
Unanimously highly regarded for its directorial skills, film scholars differ in their evaluation of the themes addressed in The Eternal Breasts. While Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández calls it "a daring depiction of female sexuality […] as well as a powerful instance of women’s creativity and self-expression",[4] Alexander Jacoby sees the "feminist and progressive" theme of a woman willingly choosing career over marriage obscured by the film's concentration on her illness, thus shying away from the more controversial implications.[5]