Meshi (1951)

Michiyo lives in the small place Osaka and is not happy with her marriage, all she does is cook and clean for her husband.

Director:

Mikio Naruse

Writers:

Toshirô Ide (screenplay), Sumie Tanaka (screenplay),

Stars:

Ken Uehara, Setsuko Hara, Yukiko Shimazaki

9 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ken Uehara	...	Hatsunosuke Okamoto
Setsuko Hara	...	Michiyo Okamoto
Yukiko Shimazaki	...	Satoko Okamoto
Yôko Sugi	...	Mitsuko Murata, Michiyo's sister-in-law
Akiko Kazami	...	Seiko Tomiyasu
Haruko Sugimura	...	Matsu Murata, Michiyo's mother
Ranko Hanai	...	Koyoshi Dohya
Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi	...	Kazuo Takenaka
Keiju Kobayashi	...	Shinzo Murata, Michiyo's brother
Akira Ôizumi
Ichirô Shimizu
Haruo Tanaka
Sô Yamamura
Chieko Nakakita	...	Keiko Yamakita
Sayuri Tanima

Storyline

Michiyo moved to Osaka two years ago, when her husband Hatsunosuke who works at a stock brokerage was transfered from Tokyo. She wash, cook and clean 365 days a year. All the dreams and hopes she had when they got married five years ago seems to be gone. From here on we follow the everyday life of Mr. and Mrs. Okamoto.

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Plot Keywords:

marriage | one word title | meal | based on novel

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

21 September 1984 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Married Life

Filming Locations:

Osaka, Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Toho Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Referenced in 100 Years of Japanese Cinema (1995)

User Reviews

Interesting but unsubbed...

Unsubbed, so I cannot really review it properly. Setsuko Hara is radiant though quite bland as the housewife who gets fed up with her husbands deroutes, especially regarding his (rather innocent) adventures with a young niece. She moves back with her relatives, but once hubby shows up in a more humble state, all is forgiven. I don't think much else actually happened, but the film is given to describing the everyday tasks and problems rather than great melodrama. Although Ozu is hailed as the great Japanese director for the Japanese, it seems to me that Naruse's film are more effortlessly showing the natural life of Mr. and Mrs. Japan, while Ozu's often come across as more staged tableaux. This is likely because of the invariably fixed and central camera Ozu employs, which makes the room in which a scene takes place appear as a stage and the action strictly choreographed. Compared with Ozu Naruse's camera is quite more engaged, however subtle the movements and variations may be, and he makes more frequent use of semi-close ups and reaction shots.