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It is rather a shock, if you are familiar with Mikio Naruse‘s cinema, to discover “Summer Clouds”. The movie stands out in his filmography – not simply because it is his first color and widescreen feature, but also because it leaves behind the urban environment typical of the director to instead tell a tale about peasant life in the countryside. In place of the quiet domestic dramas set in small Tokyo homes, we now get wide shots of fields, valleys and beaches. Stepping out of his comfort zone, Naruse also stumbles somewhat in telling a story that feels much more polished and academic than his usual fare.

Summer Clouds is screening at Metrograph as part of the Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us program

There is still much to appreciate in a movie that bears strong similarities to Naruse’s earlier works, particularly in how it concentrates on a family...

The final work in the career of the legendary Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Shimizu, “Image of a Mother” is a rare scope feature. It is a tender story that follows a little boy named Michio, struggling with his widowed father’s new arranged marriage while mourning the loss of his mother. Shimizu presents death and grief seen through the eyes of an innocent child trying to adapt to a new stepmother and stepsister.

Michio refuses to let go of the memory of his late mother, even though everyone around him urges him to forget her, to hide her picture in a drawer, and to quickly move on and embrace his father’s new wife, Sonoko, as his new mother. Michio’s friends and family cannot understand why he is unable to move on, as all of them have done long ago. However, things simply aren’t that easy for a boy of such a young age.

Masaki Kobayashi’s six-part adaptation of the book by Jumpei Gomikawa may be the most ambitious, most truthful film about the big-picture reality of war. Idealist Tatsuya Nakadai thinks he can avoid complicity in human evil by volunteering as a civilian to manage a work camp in occupied Manchuria, only to find that he’s expected to starve and torture Chinese slave laborers. Resistance leads to his conscription in a brutal boot camp, and his deployment on the Northern front as the Russians invade leads to an extended struggle to survive amid mounting horrors. There’s no escape: the ‘human condition’ is that barbarity is a given, a constant. It’s nine hours of suffering that can change one’s world view.

The Human Condition

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 480

1959-61 / B&w / 2:39 anamorphic widescreen / 575 min. / Ningen no jôken / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 8, 2021 / 59.95

Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai,...

by Tom Wilmot

Sandwiched between the acclaimed masterpieces “Late Spring” and “Tokyo Story”, “Early Summer” is the middle entry in Yasujiro Ozu’s unofficial Noriko trilogy. Released in 1951, the film marked the second collaboration between the Japanese director and actress Setsuko Hara, who would go on to work with the filmmaker four more times. A cheerful addition to Ozu’s post-war filmography, the film is nevertheless tinged with the melancholy that one would come to expect from the master director.

Noriko Mamiya (Setsuko Hara) lives with her parents, brother, sister-in-law and troublesome nephews in her family’s Tokyo home. We follow each family member as they go about their daily lives, working, parenting, and socialising. Noriko cares for her parents and meets with friends, who mostly squabble amongst themselves over matters regarding marriage. While indifferent to the idea at first, Noriko soon finds herself staring down an arranged engagement,...

There’s nothing like the term ‘Transcendental Style’ to intimidate a filmgoer, but have no fear: Yasujiro Ozu’s tale of a domestic trial is as accessible as I Love Lucy… only more substantial. The transcendental effect is being drawn into Ozu’s minimalist, precisely simplified and mysteriously profound directing style. Ten minutes in you wonder what the big deal is, but not much later one is hanging onto every cut, absorbed by tiny gestures and facial expressions. And yet it all seems natural. The Ozu ‘stasis’ some people mention is not at all static, but an X-Ray into everyday dramatic realities. With an entire second feature by Ozu, What Did the Lady Forget?

The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 989

1952 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 116 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 27, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Shin Saburi, Michiyo Kogure, Koji Tsuruta, Chishu Ryu, Chikage Awashima,...

Want a nine-hour dose of the truth of existence so harrowing that it will make you feel grateful no matter how humble your situation? Masaki Kobayshi's epic of the real cost of war boggles the mind with its creeping revelations of cosmic bleakness. Yet all the way through you know you're experiencing a truth far beyond slogans and sentiments. The Human Condition Region B Blu-ray Arrow Academy (UK) 1959-61 / B&W / 2:35 anamorphic widescreen / 574 min. / Ningen no jôken / Street Date September 19, 2016 / Available from Amazon UK £ 39.99 Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Chikage Awashima, Ineko Arima, Keiji Sada, So Yamamura, Kunie Tanaka, Kei Sato, Chishu Ryu, Taketoshi Naito. Cinematography Yoshio Miyajima Art Direction Kazue Hirataka <Film Editor Keiichi Uraoka Original Music Chuji Kinoshita Written by Zenzo Matsuyama, Masaki Kobayashi from the novel by Jumpei Gomikawa Produced by Shigeru Wakatsuki Directed by Masaki Kobayashi

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The first Blu-ray of perhaps...

Chikage Awashima and Kazuo Hasegawa in Zangiku Monogatari (1956)

"Chikage Awashima, an actress known internationally for her work with Yasujiro Ozu and other greats of Japanese cinema's 1950s golden age, died of pancreatic cancer on Thursday in Tokyo," reports Mark Schilling for Variety. She was 87. In 1950, Awashima left the Takarazaka Revue Company for the Shochiku studio, where she'd appear in "a wide range of roles, though in the West she is best remembered as the vivacious, teasing friend of lead Setsuko Hara in such films as Early Summer (1951) and Early Spring (1956) or Michiko Kogure in The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), all by Ozu. She later transferred to the Toho studio, where she starred as the level-headed geisha wife of a merchant prince's dilatory son in Shiro Toyoda's Meioto Zenzai (1955); she reprised the role in the 1963 follow-up…. Her last film role was in Masahiro Kobayashi's 2010 drama Haru's Journey."

Awashima's...