Hideko Takamine and Masayuki Mori had an affair in Indo-China during the Second World War. Now they have returned to a conquered Japan, he to his wife and she to nothing. But they still love each other, although she more than he.
The idea of a woman sacrificing herself for a man, unworthy though he be -- as all men are -- in a "He'll be sorry when I'm dead!" mood, is certainly not unique to Japanese cinema, although Western culture tends to tack on a "Reader, I married him" happy ending. Even so, I often blink and tell myself "I give them six weeks." Either that, or it's MarySue fanfiction of the bleariest sort.
In short, this strikes me as what used to be called shopgirl fiction, piffle, and unworthy of Naruse, whose narratives of downtrodden women suffering in a misogynistic Japan speak of real problems, real anguish. Yes, he gave this movie his usual attention to detail. Yes, Hideko Takamine gives one of her sterling performances, and yes, Masayuki Mori gives a performance that, like many a Naruse film, smacks less of sympathy for the downtrodden than misandry. But piffle is piffle, and it's only by remembering that film is first and foremost commercial art, that this makes sense; it's a shopgirl movie from a novel by Fumiko Hayashi (1903-1951).
She was born the daughter of a poor peddler -- somehow "poor" is always attached to the noun, as if we think of guys who have to tramp hither and yon to sell their cheap wares, as eccentric millionaires. She tried to commit suicide on several occasions. By the end of the Second World War, she was Japan's top novelist; government-sponsored trips to China in which she reported that things were great kept her in the public eye. This was the fifth novel of hers that Naruse had made into a movie, and those are also highly regarded. I like the ones I've seen a lot, particularly MESHED.
This one, however, is shopgirl piffle, even though it is shopgirl piffle of the highest order.
