Though I still consider myself to be in the "generally acquainted, not quite familiar" stage of my relationship with the films of Mikio Naruse, I've seen enough of them to know that he's a director I'd be pleased to spend more time with. His stories, mostly centering around ordinary women whose lives have been damaged by hurts inflicted upon them by insensitive men or cruel indifferent fate, consistently develop with a patient, refined elegance as they gently cajole a mournful mood of regret and sorrow to the surface. After we observe the last display of poignant expression between the quietly impassive protagonist and whatever person or force has crushed her last spark of hope for a more contented existence, Naruse never provides the expected resolution that alleviates such tensions as we usually see in narratives built around exquisite heartaches. Such a melancholic end result is clearly not for everyone's taste, but once one has acquired an appreciation for the finely distilled, smooth yet sour liqueur that Naruse perfected over the course of a long career, it's hard to say no to just another sip.
Since a couple years have passed between my last viewing of a Naruse film (1964's Yearning, back in 2013, though not reviewed anywhere), I was thus quite eager to sit down and take in Scattered Clouds, available on Criterion's Hulu channel (and only there, as no version of it on disc is anywhere to be found for the Region 1 market, anyway.) Released late in 1967, it turned out to be the director's last film as he passed away less than two years later when he was only 63 years old. One of the most prolific grand old masters of classic Japanese cinema, Naruse ended his life with a most impressive resume of 89 titles to his directorial credit. Sadly, very many of them are lost, and only one of them has been granted a proper Criterion release, the universally regarded masterpiece When a Woman Ascends the Stairs starring Hideko Takamine in one of her greatest roles - and even that is only available on DVD as of this writing. And there's also the wonderful Silent Naruse Eclipse Series set that preserves the few relative scraps that remain from his earliest stages of artistic development.
Despite a lofty reputation among in-the-know cinephiles, Naruse just didn't produce the kind of attention-grabbing epics that peers such as Kurosawa or Mizoguchi did back in the early 1950s when Japanese film was breaking through in the West. Nor did his work project the same kind of hypnotic fascination borne of rigid adherence to formula that allowed Ozu's idiosyncratic work to find an appreciative audience of world cinema fans. And so his films languish in the vaults for the most part, though I'm thankful to know that Hulu offers quite a few of his more accomplished output from the 1950s and 60s. I'd just like to get them on disc, sooner rather than later.
All this background is included here just to help give a sense of the grief process I was going through as I observed Scattered Clouds over these past two nights. My sadness sprung from the awareness that I was truly never going to see another film like this one throughout the rest of my chronological survey for my blog. With Ozu's death in 1963, and Mizoguchi having been gone since 1955, Naruse was the last of the old masters who possessed that majestic touch of subtlety and craftsmanship to tell such a story in this remarkably tasteful manner. This is one of those occasions where watching all these films in sequence really brings out the contrast between what Naruse was doing (in a project that I think for him was intended to be just another job, not his final testament on celluloid) compared to what else was happening in Japanese cinema in 1967. To wit, just consider titles like Suzuki's Branded to Kill, Oshima's Sing a Song of Sex and Japanese Summer: Double Suicide, Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion, Kurahara's Thirst for Love, or even less revered but still celebrated genre offerings like A Colt is My Passport, The X from Outer Space or the thriving Zatoichi franchise. To put it bluntly, the Japanese film industry was bursting with new energy that focused on a much more dynamic viewing experience. Naruse's placid tone and the nuanced performances he sought from his actors feel like an anachronism, at least looking back through my 2015 lens. But I'm really glad that he had the chance to drop this last one on us.
The story of Scattered Clouds, about Yumiko, a woman whose husband is struck and killed as a pedestrian, who then goes on to have an emotionally turbulent relationship with Shiro, the driver behind the wheel of the fatal car, is certainly subject to critique for lining up too many potentially dubious circumstances to be "believable." So let me just get that out of the way first. Yes, it may be stretching credulity a bit to force the two characters into this painful, thwarted romance, when the affair seems to be propelled mostly by honorable remorse on his side and a dreadful ambivalence on how to heal from understandable emotional wounds on hers. The two actors are each very attractive, so one might suspect that it's an erotic chemistry they feel (as Scott Nye elaborated on a bit in his insightful review from almost exactly three years ago), but Naruse either doesn't dare or simply has no interest in pursuing that train of thought. (Again, quite a stark divergence from how sensationally Oshima, Kurahara or Suzuki would have handled this material.)
The fact of the matter is, Yumiko and Shiro are credible stand-ins for the kind of ordinary people who continue to wend their way through life, keeping their emotions in check, playing it safe according to the rules of the society they inhabit, and end up paying dearly for their precautious, self-controlled and modest decisions. I could offer up some analysis of the different turns of events that each character reacts to, and draw parallels between the quiet torments they endure as they recognize a hard-to-articulate desire for each other despite the social, geographic and psychic barriers that interfere, and the circumstances of many of our own lives. But that's all fairly common stuff, and I suppose it makes little difference what movies we choose if we just want to have a vicarious catharsis through some fictional character's suffering. There's plenty of that out there. What really stands out to me tonight is just the delicate beauty of how Naruse and his crew put this film together - the exceptionally affecting soundtrack by Toru Takemitsu, the lovely rustic lake and woodland outdoor scenes toward the end of the film, the sharply framed interior compositions, just the entirely winsome presentation of assured style and emotive substance that's just a little bit enough on the absurd side to deliver another finely varnished layer of charm. As I've come to appreciate from Naruse in general, this film is a source of aesthetic, reflective delight, even though it marks a mournful passage. I hope my words adequately convey that mix of feelings.
Next: Marketa Lazarova
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