Synopsis
The sadness of the fight is the sadness of love. The joy and decline of life that only couples know
A husband and wife's pet peeves and minor irritations escalate into major rifts and animosity.
1956 ‘驟雨’ Directed by Mikio Naruse
A husband and wife's pet peeves and minor irritations escalate into major rifts and animosity.
Setsuko Hara Shūji Sano Kyōko Kagawa Akemi Negishi Keiju Kobayashi Chieko Nakakita Haruko Tōgō Teruko Nagaoka Daisuke Katō Hajime Izu Sachio Sakai Fuyuki Murakami Seijirô Onda Toki Shiozawa Kiyomi Mizunoya Ren Yamamoto Yaeko Izumo Yasuhisa Tsutsumi Fumindo Matsuo Senkichi Ōmura Kan Hayashi Yutaka Sada Junpei Natsuki Akemi Ueno Teruko Mita Momoko Nakazawa Toyoaki Suzuki Ichirō Chiba
Pluie soudaine, Shûu, Ливень, Shuu, Chaparrón, 취우, Внезапный дождь, 骤雨
in one of the most honest depictions of traditional marriage i've ever seen, setsuko hara plays a weary and cynical housewife grating against her second class status. her husband is an old fashioned guy who isn't cut out for the rat race; he's got a lot of job related stress but refuses to allow her a life outside the home. a sudden rain leads to a meeting with the new neighbors that will shake up all of their lives. a spare and simple drama with some lighter moments and an odd ending that sees the couple lifted out of their lethargy, if only temporarily. love the apparently diegetic piano music on the soundtrack, a clear reference to setsuko's thwarted ambitions that's later revealed to be a neighbor's obsessive practicing. it's great to see setsuko in such an overtly feminist role. RIP
There's a moment in this film where Fumiko expresses the fact that women (meaning herself) give up a lot for the men in their lives. Her husband knowingly, contemptuously scorns, "your music?" There's so much going on in this moment, from Fumiko's bitter but not too bitter condemnation of her own sacrifices to the way Ayako (Fumiko's niece) is watching this interplay and possibly fearing her future will be the same to how Fumiko's husband aloofly watches his female neighbor exercise in garb that at the time would likely have been deemed masculine to some degree. Their movements, their distances, their faces all tell stories, and despite the anger and cynicism, you can feel Naruse's compassion, making it mournful as…
"Shûu" aka "Sudden Rain" generated some mixed feelings from me.
The plot focuses (again) on a couple's unhappiness but with a wide raging scope of themes and subjects throughout. I felt that while the movie felt quite understated in many aspects, it also was quite expanded in a few others. At times, a few things seemed to get a bit lost in the shuffle, IMO.
I enjoyed the acting on this one, mainly the delightful Setsuko Hara in a very interesting (and subtle) role. Shûji Sano was a pretty good co-lead and I was happy to see Kyôko Kagawa around too, though in a smaller role.
Well, the piano tracks were definitely a thing on this one, almost omnipresent even.…
SUDDEN RAIN centers around the strained relationship of Fumiko (Hara Setsuko) and Ryotaro (Sano Shuji). It is based on a Kishida Kunio play. Despite the film’s inherent seriousness and the scent of crisis constantly present, it is a surprisingly funny and lighthearted film. Naruse’s choice to leave ample room for said playfulness, which is also reflected in the piano score, does not make light of the situation both protagonists find themselves in, but rather makes their problems stand out even more.
Take for example the neighbour meeting in which several individuals complain about the most mundane and ridiculous things. There’s a kindergarten teacher, who sees it as her holy mission to take up a leadership role in the context of…
Definitely a mid-tier Naruse joint, but it feels like it's been so long since I've watched one of his films; it was comforting to dive back in. I enjoyed the lighter tone. This might be the funniest Naruse yet, though it didn't pack quite the emotional punch which his more essential movies do.
76/100
My 50th Naruse film and it's another very good portrayal of married life from him. Though it isn't as rich and complex as his better works but the gentle, playful, comedic tone it had was a nice change of pace. Also Naruse was just so good at observing day to day life and highlighting a character's little habits etc and this here is no different. Setsuko Hara and Shūji Sano are both great and they share such wonderful chemistry. I won't call this a straight comedy like "The Actress and the Poet" or "Both You and I" , but this is most certainly one of his most lighter films on the surface. Also the ending is just brilliant.
The way Naruse builds his films is something to wonder; the way little details grow into fully realized portrait that covers at least seemingly every aspect of modern life.
Little by little everything turns into more absurd, more pointless, more oppressive even but even if the film is seemingly dry, Naruse knows how to focus on the individual human traits of the characters - for example the scene with Fumiko waiting her husband from work (clearly out of habit) just to end up looking for spiritual companionship in a stray dog or the one with stubborn and old-fashioned husband Ryôtarô spontaneously starting to unpack his frustration with a ball. Sometimes "the room" or individual expression given for character is so…
A charming little film about the daily trials and tribulations faced by a married couple. Even if it lacks the complexity of some of other Naruse films I've seen, especially When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, its strength lies in its humor and warmth. I loved the cast! This one has both Setsuko Hara and Kyoko Kagawa in the same movie.
Naruse bringing a gentle, unusually comic touch to that moment when a long-term companionship begins to feel like entrapment, when everything your partner says or does feels like something specifically designed to annoy you. “In other words, disillusionment.” A long opening exchange with Mrs. Namiki’s young niece about her own fresh honeymoon disappointments turns into both a meta-reflection on the work of marriage more generally and a painful dance between husband and wife as they flirt with wanting to put into words things that can never be unsaid. A conversation that hints especially at the wife’s accumulation of sacrifices (not just her interest in music, but some unnameable other thing), ending with her husband stepping back from the brink to…
The film opens to Setsuko Hara and Shuji Sano bickering back and forth. She sits at the table, checking out a recipe she will probably never use according to her husband. He sits there taking his medicine and reading the paper, when he's interrupted by the fact that his wife cut out the recipe section - thus ruining his morning read. It's a Sunday morning.
The relationship between Hara and Sano is perfect in how they interact. Of course, it has to be perfect. This film is one of the most realistic portrayals of marriage I've ever seen. The bickering, the relationship becoming monotonous and boring, the annoyances that build up over time.
Though this film is beautiful in its…
A comedy of manners that should be as light-hearted as the piano soundtrack that keeps invading the narrative, but somehow feels as heart wrenching as Hara's abrupt change of posture when oriented towards Sano's contemptuous smile, her overbearing politeness brusquely shifting towards an agressive response to her husband's seeming indifference towards her. Society can be so troublesome when everyone thinks so individually, everything can be so annoying. When the social dimension is a theater and the private one a living hell, one urges for something to shake up these structures, a sudden rain, or maybe an irreverent dog. An aegis of formal perfection that manages to conciliate these conflicting aspects of the film.
they made a movie about that couple that's broken up and gotten back together 20 times but you can tell they really do love each other in some weird fucked up way. score for this is also funny but great, just a dude noodlin on the keys the entire time. naruse's handling of these sorts of ill-fated loves is nothing short of incredible.