| Film Descriptions | |
| Nightly Dreams (a.k.a. Every Night's Dreams) Friday March 10, 7 PM, Freer Gallery of Art Live musical accompaniment by Ray Brubacher Few recent discoveries have created as much excitement as this, which has been called Naruse's most visually audacious work: a virtuoso display of camera movement, unusual angles, deep field composition, and startling montage. A young woman abandoned by her husband works as a hostess in a Tokyo bar to support her small son. Her husband suddenly reappears but cannot find employment, and when their boy is injured by a car, the reassembled family once again fragments, this time more tragically (1933, 65 min., silent). Preceded by Flunky Work Hard (a.k.a. Little Man, Do Your Best), a lighthearted satire about a meek insurance salesman that quickly turns dark when his son is hit by a train (1931, 38 min., silent) | |
| Wife, Be Like a Rose! Saturday, March 11, 2 PM, National Gallery of Art As her own marriage looms, "modern" woman Sachiko Chiba tries to reconcile her mother—a poetess who writes yearning haiku about her estranged husband—and her philandering father, whom Sachiko tracks down in a comically portrayed boondocks complete with a good-hearted mistress. Naruse's first talking picture was his first major success as well as the first Japanese film released in the United States. (1935, 76 minutes) | |
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Older Brother, Younger Sister Saturday, March 11, 5:20 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Sunday, March 12, 6:45 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Machiko Kyo returns home from Tokyo pregnant after an affair with a college student—a scandal that will threaten the marriage prospects of the younger sister in her cash-strapped family. Roughneck brother Masayuki Mori decides to take on the role of disciplinarian, with harrowing results. "Older Brother, Younger Sister presents a family trapped by its own construction, each member unable to move because of the others."-Joseph L. Anderson and Donald Richie, The Japanese Film. (1953, 86 min.) | |
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Husband And Wife Saturday, March 11, 7:30 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Monday, March 13, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre "The frankness and thoroughness with which Naruse delves into lower-middle-class psychology reveals sides of life . . . which would have been utterly taboo in films of the West at the time."-critic Audie Bock. Struggling young couple Ken Uehara and Yoko Sugi move out of his parents' house to rent a room from eccentric Rentaro Mikuni. The staid Uehara becomes jealous when Sugi seems to favor the landlord with her attentions. Discovering she's pregnant, the couple grapples with the question of abortion. (1953, 87 min.) | |
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The Whole Family Works Sunday, March 12, 2 PM, Freer Gallery of Art "This stands as one of my all-time favorites," Naruse said, and little wonder; the film is a miracle in many ways, a portrait of poverty by a leftist writer during a period when the militarist government was persecuting liberals and artists were being censored for any criticism of the country. In it, the eldest son of a poor family must suppress his dream of attending electrician's college. Naruse's sympathy is, as always, tempered with a rigorous understanding of individual psychology. (1939, 65 min.) |
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Hideko the Bus Conductress Sunday, March 12, 3:30 PM, Freer Gallery of Art A girl who works on an old, dilapidated bus that is losing its clientele to the modern coaches of the rival bus line comes up with a plan to win back customers by offering a colorful commentary on the passing sights, but is stymied by the greedy, devious owner. At a time when social criticism was not welcome in the Japanese cinema, Naruse slipped a subversive anti-authority, anti-business sting into this otherwise sunny little comedy. (1941, 53 min.) | |
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Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts Friday, March 17, 7 PM, Freer Gallery of Art "A Thirties masterpiece...a splendid melodrama" (Chris Fujiwara, Film Comment) about a cruel, stingy mother in charge of a group of samisen-playing girls who lives with her three daughters in the Asakusa area of Tokyo. The eldest of the "three sisters with maiden hearts" takes up with some louche musicians, and unable to find enough money to support her sick, unemployed husband, is drawn into an extortion scheme. Naruse long considered it one of his best films. (1935, 75 min.) |
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When a Woman Ascends the Stairs Saturday, March 18, 2 PM, National Gallery of Art Saturday, April 15, 7:35 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Monday, April 17, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Young widow Hideko Takamine, bar hostess at a fashionable Ginza nightclub, dreams of opening her own place but cannot flee her debilitating problems -- stumbling blocks symbolized by the flight of stairs she ascends each evening to her place of work while others are heading home. "An elegant essay in black and white and tinkling cocktail jazz," wrote critic J. Hoberman, "the last classic of Japan's pre-New Wave golden age." (1960,111 minutes) |
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Wife Saturday, March 18, 1 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Monday, March 20, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Based on a novel by pioneering feminist Fumiko Hayashi. Bored housewife Hideko Takamine neglects the housework, when not outright sabotaging it. But when she discovers her husband, Ken Uehara, is having an affair with his widowed secretary, she fights desperately to hold on to him. (1953, 89 min.) | |
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Summer Clouds (a.k.a. Herringbone Clouds) Saturday, March 18, 4:15 PM, National Gallery of Art Naruse's first film shot in the countryside, in color and CinemaScope, introduces a rare breath of fresh air. Erstwhile beauty queen Chikage Awashima (star of Ozu's films), here cast against type as a war widow working her husband's small plot, is a strong protagonist who knowingly walks into an affair with married reporter Isao Kimura (from Seven Samurai). "With a stunning conclusion, both tragic and upbeat." -- Michael Jeck (1958, 128 minutes) | |
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Mother Saturday, March 18, 5:15 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Sunday, March 19, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre This haha-mono, "mother picture," is distinctive for its wry humor, toughness and poignancy. Loving teenage daughter Kyoko Kagawa narrates the story of her mother, Kinuyo Tanaka's, struggle to keep the family laundry business going after the war and great personal loss. Japanese film historian Tadao Sato groups this film with Mizoguchi's Life Of Oharu and Kurosawa's Ikiru, all from 1952, as the beginning of "the second golden age of Japanese cinema." (1952, 98 min.) |
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Tsuruhachi and Tsurujiro Sunday, March 19, 2 PM, Freer Gallery of Art Naruse said this film "suited [his] tastes," and it's easy to see why. The title characters are a female samisen player and a male ballad singer whose backstage bickering threatens to break them up. Japanese film historian Shigehiko Hasumi has written of this film: "We are astounded again with the fact that by simple directing Naruse could easily and simply fill the screen with sensitivity for the light that is essential to movies." (1938, 87 min.) |
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Traveling Actors Friday, March 24, 7 PM, Freer Gallery of Art "This is one of my personal favourites," Naruse said of this lovely comedy about two actors who play the front and back legs of a horse and feel their artistry is unappreciated. When the self important barber who funds their show decides to replace them with a real horse, they plan to get even. With its implicit criticism of militarism, this film is a risk-taking comedy: a delight and a distillation of Naruse's poetry and view of human nature. (1940, 70 min.) |
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Late Chrysanthemums Saturday, March 25, 3:30 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Monday, March 27, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre An expert combination of three Fumiko Hayashi stories, justly celebrated as one of Naruse's greatest works. Retired geisha Haruko Sugimura spends most of her time loan-sharking to former geisha friends, all of whom have children with whom they're disappointed, yet on whom they depend. Sugimura is hard-bitten, cynical and condescending to her debtors, but her tough posturing is tested when former lover Ken Uehara turns up. (1954, 101 min.) | |
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Sound of the Mountain Saturday, March 25, 7:45 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Sunday, March 26, 6:20 PM, AFI Silver Theatre The sublime Setsuko Hara, best known in Yasujiro Ozu's films, did some of her finest work for Naruse. Here she gives a moving performance as the wife of boozing, womanizing Ken Uehara. Despairing of her unhappy marriage, she considers terminating her concealed pregnancy. So Yamamura shines as the wise father-in-law with whom she forms a unique friendship. Based on a novel by Nobel prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata. "I would put it on equal footing with the best of Mizoguchi, Ozu, Ford, McCarey, Chaplin, Rossellini, Dreyer, Renoir or Hitchcock; that is to say, among the greatest films ever made."—critic Miguel Marias. (1954, 96 min.) | |
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The Song Lantern Sunday, March 26, 2 PM, Freer Gallery of Art A cruel tale set in the world of Noh theater, this film has as its central character the thoughtless adopted son of a great actor. He seeks out another legendary performer, and his ridicule of the diminished artist precipitates disaster. The chastened young man finds redemption by teaching a special Noh dance to the young woman whom he has orphaned. In this gorgeous scene set in a sun-dappled pine forest, film historian Shigehiko Hasumi finds "the signature of the filmmaker Mikio Naruse engraved." (1943, 93 min.) |
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A Tale of Archers at the Sanjusangendo Friday, March 31, 7 PM, Freer Gallery of Art In this "grand samurai movie" (Japanese film critic Sadao Yamane), an innkeeper raises a boy whose father has committed seppuku after losing the archery competition at Sanjusangendo Temple. She sees to it that the boy is trained in the art of archery, so that he can redeem his father's honor in a contest to beat the record of eight thousand arrows in a row. Secretly tutored by a master archer, the son prepares diligently; but triumph won't be easy. (1945, 76 min.) | |
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Daughters, Wives, and a Mother Saturday, April 1, 2:30 PM, National Gallery of Art In suburban Tokyo, the passing of a son in the Sakanishi family leaves his widow with a huge insurance fortune. Then the entire family descends--with backbiting, catastrophe, and recrimination so horrific that the mater familias heads for a nursing home, and only the widow herself, amid the emotional mayhem, seems to have a shot at happiness. Full color and Scope set off the all-star cast that includes Setsuko Hara, Hideko Takamine, Ken Uehara, Masayuki Mori, and Tatsuya Nakadai. (1960, 123 minutes) | |
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Floating Clouds Saturday, April 1, 7:15 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Tuesday, April 4, 8:30 PM, AFI Silver Theatre For many this was Naruse's artistic pinnacle—lhis greatest commercial success and Kinema Jumpo's Best One winner of 1955. Hideko Takamine and Masayuki Mori, wartime lovers in lush Indochina, are reunited amid the bombed-out rubble of postwar Tokyo. While they renew their affair, Mori is emotionally ambivalent and refuses to leave his wife. Singularly undeterred, Takamine sinks to ever more ruinous depths in her all-out attempts to regain their lost love. (1955, 123 min.) |
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Ginza Cosmetics (a.k.a. Light and Dark of the Ginza) Sunday, April 2, 2 PM, Freer Gallery of Art Not to be missed. Famed actress Kinuyo Tanaka is sensational in this portrait of a Ginza bar hostess supporting the son she had with a poor married man. When she fends off the sexual advances of a rich patron whose mistress she was designated to become, all hope of financial security seems lost. But when a friend introduces her to a young, ardent man, the hostess thinks she may at last have found a tender mate and a way out of the Ginza. (1951, 87 min.) | |
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Sudden Rain Sunday, April 2, 5:15 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Monday, April 3, 7:20 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Reuniting Naruse with star Setsuko Hara after the triumphs of Repast and Sound Of The Mountain, this wry chamber piece focuses on a couple whose pet peeves and minor irritations escalate into major rifts and animosity. External pressures—money woes, needy relatives and problem neighbors—are catalysts for Hara and husband Shuji Sano to disagree even more. They are near the breaking point when a light-hearted diversion points them toward hopeful reconciliation. (1956, 91 min.) | |
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Anzukko Friday, April 7, 2:30 pm, National Gallery of Art Many of Naruse's female characters are widows or, as in Anzukko, wives of ineffective men. Playing the concerned father of a "modern" young woman who ends up rejecting many suitors, celebrated Japanese actor Sô Yamamura eventually calls his daughter back home after it appears that her choice of a husband, an aspiring novelist, may have been a false move. Will the father's status as renowned novelist only add to the problem? (1958, 35mm, Japanese with subtitles, 108 minutes) | |
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Lightning Friday, April 7, 7 PM, Freer Gallery of Art In this major Naruse film, Hideko Takamine (his favorite actress) plays Kiyoko, a tour bus guide who has three half-siblings—all from different fathers. Kiyoko's squabbling family life with her shiftless brother and scheming eldest sister becomes even more dire when a prosperous baker enters the scene as her prospective husband, and she determines to leave home. Sad, compassionate—that is, pure Naruse—it has been called "an almost perfect realization of Fumiko Hayashi's novel" (Donald Richie and Joseph L. Anderson). (1952, 87 min.) | |
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Flowing Saturday, April 8, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Tuesday, April 11, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Scholar Phillip Lopate ranks Flowing as one of Naruse's three masterpieces, alongside Late Chrysanthemums and Floating Clouds. Hired as a maid in a once-proud geisha house, Kinuyo Tanaka observes the last days of this dying world in postwar Tokyo. Mistress Isuzu Yamada, drowning in debt, plays samisen to chase her blues away, but it's only a matter of time before she will be forced to sell or go the bordello route. The future of daughter Hideko Takamine hangs in the balance. (1956, 117 min.) | |
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Repast Sunday, April 9, 2 PM, Freer Gallery of Art Saturday, April 15, 5:30 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Tuesday, April 18, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre In this, a favorite film of the late Susan Sontag, Setsuko Hara gives a brilliantly nuanced performance as an Osaka housewife who feels trapped and unhappy in her marriage to a stockbroker. A surprise visit from the husband's niece, on the run from her parents, galvanizes the unhappy Hara, and when she takes the troublesome young woman back home to Tokyo, she contemplates never returning to her husband. Profound and subtle, this is "one of Naruse's finest works" (Audie Bock). (1951, 97 min.) |
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A Wife's Heart Sunday, April 9, 5:20 PM, AFI Silver Theatre Monday, April 10, 7 PM, AFI Silver Theatre After the hardships of losing her father and watching the family business decline, Hideko Takamine saves her money to strike out on her own, hoping to open a coffee shop. Without her consent, her family appropriates the money to fund her sister's wedding. Not to be deterred, Takamine gets a loan from the bank, making her husband jealous when he suspects she is having an affair with the handsome, helpful loan officer. (1956, 101 min.) | |
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The Approach of Autumn Saturday, April 15, 3 PM, National Gallery of Art Recently widowed Nobuko Otowa relocates for a job at Tokyo's Mishima Hotel but her shy sixth-grader has trouble adjusting, preferring instead the company of his pet beetle—until he befriends the hotel manager's daughter. Keith Uhlich wrote, "Naruse puts his inquisitive, beetle-loving young lead through a seemingly never-ending series of trials by fire that force him well beyond the point where he might retreat to anything familiar.... A rare and masterful focus on children for Naruse." (1960, 79 minutes) | |
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A Wanderer's Notebook (a.k.a. Lonely Lane) Sunday, April 16, 4:30 PM, National Gallery of Art Naruse felt a special kinship with novelist Fumiko Hayashi, choosing to base many of his films on her writings and, in A Wanderer's Notebook, adapting her autobiography for the screen. In turn, Fumiko's life provided fertile source material for the director—dire poverty, family problems, dreadful day jobs, repeated affairs with losers. In a radiant performance, actress Hideko Takamine embodies this author with panache and poise, "a love letter from one artist to another."—Jason Sanders (1962, 123 minutes) | |
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Yearning Sunday, April 23, 4:30 PM, National Gallery of Art War widow Reiko (Hideko Takamine) struggles to keep her provincial mom-and-pop store afloat against the onset of supermarkets and intrusive in-laws. "With its hopping street life, whirring motor scooters, vibes music, and nihilist hero (the pop singer Yuzo Kayama), Yearning might be mistaken for a film by one of Japan's younger generation, such as Masahiro Shinoda," wrote Judy Bloch. "A beautiful tension emerges between old and new, and melodrama and New Wave anti-melodrama." (1964, 97 minutes) | |
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Scattered Clouds Saturday, April 29, 2 PM, National Gallery of Art "Naruse was aware he was dying when he made this affecting drama about a young woman haunted by her husband's death in a car accident. At first, she refuses to forgive the driver but, after the two meet again by chance in Hokkaido, a fated bond slowly grows between them. Phillip Lopate called this 'one of [this director's] strangest and strongest.' It is eerie to see how well his style worked inside the mode of the late sixties; how curiously modernist it looks in CinemaScope, with its cool, restrained colors and spare compositions; how suitable his theme was to the age of alienation, though it is only Naruse's old song: people scheming to get a little of what they want in a world designed for unhappiness."—Pacific Film Archive (1967, 107 minutes) |
