Yearning

I've seen most of Naruse's surviving filmography, and out of all those films I would recommend "Midareru" (Yearning, 1964) as an introduction piece for those interested in the director's work. This is because the film features most of the filmmaker's core motifs in a polished, easy-to-follow form, that hooks you in very fast and improves towards the ending.

Naruse's everyday dramas and tales of women living through hard times resemble each other very much, but vary in quality considerably. "Midareru" is one of the director's collaborations with his most-important post-war actress Takamine Hideko. The film craftily builds upon the characters and storylines played by Takamine in previous Naruse films like "Tsuma no kokoro" (A Wife's Heart, 1956), "Onna no za" (The Wiser Age, 1962) and "Onna no rekishi" (A Woman's Place, 1963). In "Midareru", Takamine is again seen as a widow living with his dead husband's family, trying to keep a small family-owned shop going. She is an invaluable member of the household, though people have started to wonder, if she should remarry while she is still young. Takamine has a difficult relationship with his husband's brother Koji (Kayama Yuzo), who lounges through life aimlessly. After a while thing change, and possible romantic sparks occur between them.

Like most Naruse films, "Midareru" operates between the emotional world, and the economical one. The shop is struggling, because a supermarket opened nearby, and the entrepreneurs can't meet their prices. Koji's free-wheeling lifestyle does not help, and Takamine's daily routines take place either in melancholy solitude or interacting with a family, that she is not really a member of. The mundane core of Naruse's work is established well, and yet the ambiguity that makes his works harder to classify than those by his contemporaries is absent in this film. "Midareru" does not rely on the viewer interpreting half of the plot, but is instead straight-forward and well spread as a narrative. This is why I call it a great introduction to the director, whose talent is unquestioned, but whose filmography is full of ups and downs, springs and autumns.

The black and white cinematography is exquisite and captures a detailed vision of everyday life. The narrative carries some worries about the society's state and the rapid westernization, but this is not one of the director's more didactic works. It is very minimalist in the number of important characters, and keeps the bulk of the film close to these individuals. Takamine gives a stunning performance, though it's reserved and classy like her work always is. Kayama manages to turn Koji slowly from a caricature of modernity into a three dimensional individual with a past, a present, and possibly a future. The final act of the film is one of Naruse's best, and the film as whole is that as well.

In the War, Hideko Takamine married a soldier. He was killed within six months. His family's liquor store was caught in a bombing raid, and while most of the community fled, she singlehandedly worked to rebuild the business. Now eighteen years have passed and the store and the family are prosperous. However, there are two new supermarkets in town, drawing all the business. Yûzô Kayama, her husband's younger brother, has been strangely lazy. He had a job with a good corporation, but quit. Instead of working at the store, he spends his days loafing. Yet he is smart enough to realize that, with the store's good location, there is an answer: convert to a supermarket. The family is enthusiastic. His sisters' husbands are willing to back the expanded venture in return for directorships, and the sisters are ecstatic. Yûzô says that Hideko will have to be an executive; she has, after all, saved the family and run the store for almost two decades. The sisters think this is ridiculous; she is not, they insist, a blood relative. Nothing gets done. Hideko is only vaguely aware of the proposal, because her brother-in-law won't talk about it. then he tells her the secret he has been silent about for so long:he is in love with her.

Here's Mikio Naruse again, plowing the same patch he did for so many years, the Shomin-Gekim. He was often compared to Ozu, to his own detriment. Although he produced masterpieces, there is nowhere near as much consideration of his work. He did not concern himself with the workings of the family, but with the individual, usually the oppressed woman (although Kamaya suffers for his love, Miss Takamine is not even permitted to consider the matter): very bad! His focus is not the collective. He does not plant his camera humbly on the mat and look at his subject through long, unmoving takes: very bad! How is a film critic supposed to recognize his style? He does not use the same actors, over and again, in much the same roles: very bad! A true auteur tells the same story, over and over! His characters suffer the strictures of society, with only private tears: very bad! The bourgeouisie win again!

It's a false dichotomy, as if by admiring Ozu more, we must despise his colleagues. I admire Ozu greatly, and I also admire Naruse, who told his tales of woe with great compassion and despair, and did so with fine actors. As he does here.

I have all the respect in the world for Mikio Naruse, I really do. His films always touch on things that are still relevant- he's good at exploring timeless themes. His films always have good acting, and are also always nice to look at. They're also tremendously empathetic, and focus far more on female characters than many films from the 1950s and 60s. In that way, they also feel forward-thinking and maybe even radical.

But at the same time, I do always find them slow-going and a little hard to really get into it. There's a certain distance I feel every time I watch one of his movies, even while I recognise they're very well-made. And there's no proper criticisms I can make about it; not more than saying I just find his films a little boring.

It's a me problem. I still respect what he did as a filmmaker, and I do understand why he's so highly regarded. His movies just aren't really for me - not any I've seen yet, at least.

The first part of this film makes it look like its main focus is going to be on one of the perils of capitalism, that of large companies driving smaller ones out of business by moving into a neighborhood and undercutting them on prices, kind of like a much more serious version of Supermarket Woman (1996). I thought my review might start with, people, if you value your mom and pop shops, for the of god, stop shopping at Walmart and Amazon. That is certainly a component here, but this film broadens into so much more, dealing with societal expectations for Japanese women and slowly developing an incredibly touching romance.

Hideko Takemine plays Reiko, the widowed daughter-in-law who has been running a grocery store for her in-law family for 18 years, since the end of WWII. She built the store on her own while the rest of the family fled to the countryside to avoid Allied bombing, and lost her beloved husband to the war. A large supermarket moves in and begins taking her shop's business, but worse yet, her sisters-in-law, their husbands, and her mother-in-law have hatched a plan to tear down the grocery and build a supermarket of their own. Despite everything she's done for them, they want her out of the picture, either through re-marriage or relegation to a minor job in the new store.

Resisting this plan is the younger brother (Yuzo Kayama), who was just 7 years old when his brother met Reiko, so perhaps 10-15 years younger than her. (I was surprised this was the actual age difference between Kayama and Takemine, since Takemine at 40 looks so young and is absolutely gorgeous, but I digress.) The younger brother is a bit of a profligate, gambling, sleeping around with women, and staying out to all hours and getting drunk. He stands up for Reiko, and we soon find out that in addition to his sense of fairness, it's because he harbors feelings for her.

Reiko seems like the epitome of ideal womanhood, something which is as limiting as it is unfair. She holds a torch for her late husband with no desire to remarry, and selflessly works away with a smile. She would rather sacrifice her own feelings than complain or cause antagonism. Her emotions are generally well concealed, but Takemine is masterful in revealing them as the story places out. Watch the look of shock and horror on her face when the younger man declares himself, the tears coming to her eyes on the train, or her conflicted look when denying him even after admitting she loves him. She's brilliant.

It seems like it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to be happy in a new marriage, but she's weighted down with feeling a need to stay loyal to her dead husband, what others will think about the age difference, and how she'll be ruining this young guy's promising life. She's a genuinely virtuous person, but I got the sense that she had also internalized too much of the societal expectation to be perfectly selfless. A long, overnight train ride through the country and growing attachment between the pair leads to swirling emotions and unforgettable scenes, played so well by both Takemine and Kayama. Great stuff from Mikio Naruse.

I have binge watching Naruse films and have liked all but one. Yearning may be the moving both as a love story and as a story of social change. The theme of small businesses being run out by large corporations is as timely today in the US as it was in 1964 Japan. The two leads are terrific and have great chemistry. Highly recommended