Mikio Naruse

Synopsis:
THE SADNESS OF THE FIGHT IS THE SADNESS OF LOVE. THE JOY AND DECLINE OF LIFE THAT ONLY COUPLES KNOW.

A husband and wife’s pet peeves and minor irritations escalate into major rifts and animosity.Read More »

Quote:
Keijiro and Ayako Kono seem like a picture-book upper middle-class family. He is a respected professor and the couple has two amiable children. But the Kono’s domestic siutuation is more complicated than it seems on the surface. The children are actually the illegitimate children of Kono’s long-time mistress, Miho. To compensate for giving up the children, the Konos subsidize a bar which Miho operates.Read More »

In many of his most successful films, Naruse depicted common people, living their lives. With Repast the director set his characters to the task of navigating their way amidst a pungent atmosphere of fading love. Set shortly after World War II, Repast is about a struggling marriage between salaryman Hatsunosuke (Ken Uehara) and his wife Michiyo (Setsuko Hara). It focuses on the emotional crisis of the bored housewife. The tedium of her domestic life – consumed by repetitive tasks such as cooking and cleaning – is brought into focus by a visit from Hatsunosuke’s niece, Satoko (Yukiko Shimazaki). Satoko’s arrival, and the amount of attention Hatsunosuke devotes to her charms, leads to further unhappiness for Michiyo, who is forced to confront her future. In the hands of master director Naruse, this adaptation of an unfinished novel by Fumiko Hayashi offers a fascinating exploration of married life, from the habitual routine of everyday existence to the hope for a better tomorrow that may or may not keep such relationships alive. Eureka VideoRead More »

Five poor musicians make up the worst traveling brass band in Japan. For a few days they hook up with an awful circus whose male performers are on strike.Read More »

In the formally ravishing Every-Night Dreams, set in the dockside neighborhoods of Tokyo, a single mother works tirelessly as a Ginza bar hostess to ensure a better life for her young son—until her long-lost husband returns.Read More »

Mikio Naruse’s final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a suffocatingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman accidentally hits her with his car. Featuring vividly drawn characters and bold political commentary, Street Without End is the grandly entertaining silent melodrama with which Naruse arrived at the brink of the sound era.Read More »

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.Read More »

A dramatized biography of Fumiko Hayashi, the noted Japanese writer. Born to improverished parents Fumiko does all she can to earn money enough to support herself. Along the way she gets invovled with various men, good and bad.Read More »

Synopsis:
A Women’s Place follows the daily lives of the Ishikawa family who own a general goods store in Tokyo. The film’s opening sees the Ishikawa children rush to the bedside of their father after hearing that he collapsed. As all is well, they go on with their hurried lives. A mystery son later appears out of nowhere to upend the family order and stability.Read More »