The Road I Travel with You

Earnest teens trying to break the chains of traditions to find and keep love. For the most part this works mainly because of how likable all four of the youngsters were. The final irony of the whole film was the fact that the mom never got what was going on, she just didn't get it.

Not one of Mikio Naruse's better films. A little too ordinary and melodramatic to get engaging. While it was a sad romantic ending, the rest didn't really establish the deeper emotions that would trigger the tragedy. The whole build-up was too bland and protected up in the higher classes to get close. At the half-way point I felt nothing. While it picked up a little toward the end with the somber tale of lovers that couldn't be, it did not at any point feel like I was watching something special.

Sort of unintentionally (?) brilliant. Naruse is dealing with something so out of his comfort zone. Not only is this upper class people, it's upper class MEN. The performances are stilted and weird, but I like to think that it's because of the context: privileged people complaining about their privileged problems. It's almost absurdly dull but that makes it more weirdly more interesting than anything I've seen from him lately.