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.
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.