Hideo Saeki wants to divorce meek, uninteresting Noboru Kiritachi so he can be with Ranko Edogawa; not for him the antiquated hypocrisy of pretending to monogamy while keeping a mistress. He knows what he knows and must be true to himself. His father tells him that a man has responsibilities and knowing things is not the same thing as understanding them.
Naruse's drama has definite Brechtian overtones in which thoughts and ideas are at war with systems. Like many a Brecht piece, it is all about ideas and talk talk talk, and this movie shows that Naruse has gone full talkie mode. He tries to disguise this with a lot of moving shots, in which two people hold long, philosophical conversations while walking along a street or through a forest, but he doesn't succeed with his unlikable characters doing selfish things. Many directors who were talented in the silent era, when confronted with sound, floundered, and here Naruse, despite his efforts to keep things moving, doesn't succeed.
You might wish to see this out of a sense of completeness, nonetheless. Not only is Naruse coming back into focus these days as a talented and worthy director, but his First Assistant Director is on this movie is Ishiro Honda, better known as the director of GODZILLA and the frequent A.D. of Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa is only the Third Assistant Director of this movie.
Naruse's drama has definite Brechtian overtones in which thoughts and ideas are at war with systems. Like many a Brecht piece, it is all about ideas and talk talk talk, and this movie shows that Naruse has gone full talkie mode. He tries to disguise this with a lot of moving shots, in which two people hold long, philosophical conversations while walking along a street or through a forest, but he doesn't succeed with his unlikable characters doing selfish things. Many directors who were talented in the silent era, when confronted with sound, floundered, and here Naruse, despite his efforts to keep things moving, doesn't succeed.
You might wish to see this out of a sense of completeness, nonetheless. Not only is Naruse coming back into focus these days as a talented and worthy director, but his First Assistant Director is on this movie is Ishiro Honda, better known as the director of GODZILLA and the frequent A.D. of Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa is only the Third Assistant Director of this movie.