reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (06/23/85)
On a different note than the current summer fluff: I spent a couple of
nights over the last two weekends seeing some films by Mikio Naruse, a
Japanese director. Naruse made films during the forties, fifties, and
early sixties, dying in the mid-sixties. He is extremely well-known in
Japan, but very little known in the US, and probably in Europe, too.
Naruse's films almost all concern a single subject: the sufferings of
women in postwar Japan. Suffering women pictures usually receive a
pretty low rating on my "must see" list, jaded as I am by the seemingly
endless outpouring of Hollywood films in the thirties and forties on this
subject, most of which I find nearly unwatchable. Naruse, however, doesn't
work on the superficial level most of these films do, and he's a damn good
director, too. His insight into the problems of ordinary people is astonishing.
His films also offer a rare view at the social problems of postwar Japan,
dealing as they frequently do with war widows, the effects of a rapid influx
of Western culture on Japan, and the changes in society resulting from the
Americans' forced alterations in Japanese government and society. Whether or
not it sounds to you like you'll like his films (it didn't sound to me like I
would), I strongly urge you to see them if you get a chance.
I saw these films at a "rediscovery" type retrospective at UCLA, and such
retrospectives are frequently followed by wider releases of some of the
films. I won't go through the titles, but watch your local revivial houses,
museums, and universities for his name. On the strength of the four films
I saw, I'd recommend anything he directed. Subtitle haters are, of course,
exempt (unless they speak Japanese).
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher