Inazuma

The many times Mikio Naruse almost has me. Especially when he was interesting material like this to work with, only falling short because of his very conventional approach to film making. Never poking the bear hard enough for the cracks in the story to shine bright. But naturally Hideko Takamine's bitter love of her flawed mother is what drives the movie, and then it just ends without really confronting the issues. It's just life and life goes on regardless what you feel.

Relâmpago estreava há 70 anos no Japão. Belíssimo filme, um dos vários adaptados por Naruse oriundos da obra literária de Fumiko Hayashi. Você sabe que tem o dedo de uma mulher na concepção quando o interesse amoroso da protagonista advém do fato que o homem lava as próprias roupas. Escritoras clássicas tendiam a escrever personagens masculinos como deveriam ser e não como de fato eram. Box Versátil O Cinema de Mikio Naruse.

What's unusual and interesting about this movie is that most of the problems are left unresolved, threads are dropped without being followed through, and it's unclear that anything will really get better, and yet the film works some kind of magic in order to wrench emotion from a little turn in the relationship between the protagonist and her mother. Surprisingly affecting in that regard. One must wait until the 65-minute mark for a train to appear, signifying some positive narrative movement.

Definitely deserves to be better known among Naruse's works; the story covers many familiar Naruse themes and as usual is compositionally excellent. The only weakness, for me, is that the ending resolution (such as it is) seems a little glib considering everything that has come before.