Scarecrow Deep Dive: Naruse Mikio
When Naruse adapted Hayashi: 1951's REPAST
Welcome to Scarecrow Deep Dive, where I write in-depth posts about titles or sections at Scarecrow Video. The purpose is to show off the glory that is Scarecrow to people who may not be aware of how vast and important its collection is, especially as a publicly available resource.
While I will go back at some point and write about the rest of his silent films, today I’m writing about Repast, the first Naruse Mikio1 adaptation of a novel by Hayashi Fumiko, which is also the first sound film that Scarecrow Video has from Naruse in its collection.
During and immediately after World War II - according to Wikipedia - Naruse’s films weren’t very good. In 1935, he’d released Wife! Be Like a Rose!, which was one of his first sound films. This could be considered his breakout movie, and it’s a shame Scarecrow doesn’t have a copy2. But the years following weren’t as kind to Naruse. A few reasons exist as to why that is, the main ones being that he took on projects with poor scripts and bad acting, and kept to “safe” projects during the war. Also, in the early 1940s, his marriage to Chiba Sachiko was ending - and this in a country where, as early as twenty years ago - divorce was still something to be frowned upon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikio_Naruse#Early_years)
But then, in 1951, he adapted Hayashi Fumiko’s final, incomplete novel, めし(Meshi -or in English, Repast), which revitalized his career.3 Didn’t hurt that two of Ozu’s regulars, Sugimura Haruko and the incomparable Hara Setsuko, starred in the film, with Hara as the lead. This is the earliest Naruse film I’ve seen that uses voiceover narration by the main character, which would appear in later films like When a Woman Ascends the Stairs. It also begins with the following quote, which sets the tone: “I am moved by the sadness to be found in the simple lives of people in the limitless space of the universe.” - Fumiko Hayashi
The basic plot: Michiyo (Hara) is living with her husband Hatsu (Ken Uehara) in Osaka, but misses Tokyo. When his carefree niece Satoko (Shimazaki Yukiko) appears on their doorstep after running away from a marriage proposal at home, it creates tensions between Michiyo and Hatsu, as Michiyo tries to be a perfect housewife, but feels that Hatsu doesn’t appreciate her and is far too interested in his carefree niece. She ends up taking Satoko back to Tokyo and staying with her mother, sister, and brother-in-law, leaving Hatsu to fend for himself, along with some help from the women in the neighborhood.
Naruse’s camera moves more than Ozu’s (and he prefers fades to pillow shots), but his technique isn’t as flashy as it was in his silent films. No superimposed images or extreme zooms here. Most of the time, when his camera moves, it moves parallel to the action.
Like his early films, Naruse includes comedy in this mostly-serious story, and also more melodrama than you’d find in an Ozu film, but also a heightened realism. Ozu’s characters tend to be stoic about everything, Mizoguchi’s tend to be passionate about everything, and Naruse’s are in the middle. And with Hara, you get someone who can simutaneously be stoic and passionate, due to her unique ability to show herself suppressing her emotions while simultaneously showing you the emotions she’s suppressing. She gets to suppress them less in this film and show off more of her range in a way that surprised me as being different from what she brings to Ozu’s films. This is right up there with Late Spring as one of her finest performances.
In the one special feature that comes with this movie (the 15-minute Notes on Repast), Kent Jones (editor-at-large of Film Comment) and Phillip Lopate (editor of the anthology American Movie Critics) mention that Naruse is excellent at showing the negative side of virtue, and how casting Hara - who usually plays the ideal Japanese woman - as someone struggling to fit that ideal, is a masterstroke in casting. And how much does it remind me of L’Atalante. In both movies, you have a couple who love each other but are also fed up with certain aspects of their character, leading to a separation. More importantly, they both deal with relationships that feel real, and are less concerned with how they started than with how they’re going, which I always think is the more interesting aspect to a relationship.
Unfortunately, this region 2 DVD from Masters of Cinema is out-of-print, so if you want to rent it from Scarecrow, be prepared to put down a $500 deposit for it. Hopefully, just as BFI recently released Floating Clouds on Blu-ray, so will Masters of Cinema release their Naruse onto Blu-ray. He (and this film) deserve it.
You can help keep Scarecrow Video open by sharing or donating to its SOS campaign. They currently have a $75,000 match going, so all donations up to $75,000 will be doubled.
Usually I write Japanese surnames first, followed by first names, but these names are more commonly known in English written the other way, and that’s how I wrote the first Naruse post, too.
If anyone out there has a copy with English subtitles, Scarecrow gladly accepts donations.
He adapted her work more than any other director: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumiko_Hayashi_(author)#Adaptations_(selected)