Floating Clouds (Ukigumo)
Directed by Mikio Naruse
Written by Yôko Mizuki from a novel by Fumiko Hayashi
1955/Japan
Toho Company
First viewing/Hulu
No adultery is bloodless. — Natalia Ginzburg
This is an interesting if frustrating film with some excellent acting.
The film is set in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese defeat in WWII and thereafter. As the film begins, Yukiko Koda (Hideko Takamine) is returning, penniless, to war-torn Tokyo from Indochina where she had been working in happier times. Her first stop is at the home of Kengo Tomioka (Masayuki Mori). She is greeted by his mother and wife. He goes with her outside and we flash back to the beginning of their love affair when she arrived, as a young girl, to Vietnam. The bloom is definitely now off the rose as far as Tomioka is concerned, though he offers to help her financially. She refuses and goes to shack up at the empty house of a “friend”.
Yukiko survives by taking up with an American GI. Soon enough, though, Tomioka is back in the picture. He takes her to a mountain inn where he asks her to commit double suicide with him. She declines and he starts flirting with the young wife of the owner and feels less like dying himself. Back in Tokyo, the only way Yukiko can get by is by starting a relationship with the “friend”, who is now rich. But Yukiko can’t seem to keep away from her unfaithful lover.
This is a very well made film. I especially liked Masayuki Mori as the rat fink lover. He is different in every movie I have seen him in. It was kind of frustrating to watch though. You knew from the first frame that the guy was a louse — before they even started their affair he was kind of insulting to her. If people could only learn to accept it when the one they love doesn’t love them, the world would be a better place. It might not have as many melodramas however.
Compilation of clips from various Naruse films set to nice music
