Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1951 • Japan
Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Ranko Hanai, Yuji Hori
Something of a Japanese answer to the neorealist movement concurrently flowering in Europe, Mikio Naruse’s lyrical, quietly moving portrait of everyday endurance in Tokyo’s bustling Ginza district recounts a few days in the life of a luckless, middle-aged geisha (the heartbreakingly great Kinuyo Tanaka) as she weathers setbacks and disappointments while trying to eke out a living for herself and her young son. Forgoing artificial dramatics in favor of an almost documentary-like naturalism, Naruse crafts a bittersweet breakthrough whose slice-of-life texture possesses a startlingly vivid power.
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Repast
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1951 • Japan
Starring Setsuko Hara, Ken Uehara, Yukiko ShimazakiA watershed work in the career of master director Mikio Naruse, REPAST marked the beginning of his extraordinary late-career renaissance. The first of a string of adaptations that Naruse would direct base...
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Mother
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1952 • Japan
Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Kyoko Kagawa, Eiji OkadaRather more upbeat (and at times even lighthearted) than the transcendentally tragic melodramas he is best known for, Mikio Naruse’s bittersweet family portrait features a quietly masterful performance from ...
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Wife
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1953 • Japan
Starring Mieko Takamine, Ken Uehara, Rentaro MikuniOne of six films that director Mikio Naruse adapted from the novels of Fumiko Hayashi, WIFE is an incisive, unsparing portrait of a decade-old marriage in the process of disintegrating. Opening and closin...
