Scattered Clouds

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william d @acsdoug 09/29/2022 It's too bad Naruse died so young. In his films from the 60s you can really see him adopt more modern techniques and experimenting with color. I would have loved to have seen what he would have come up if given another twenty years. See more 02/06/2015 Mikio Naruse's last feature (and one of the few I remember being in colour) is a mature work that stabs its characters deeply with the dagger of death in the first 20 minutes and then never lets them recover. Yumiko has everything: her husband has just been promoted in his government job and they are moving to Washington DC and about to have their first child. When he is suddenly struck down and killed by a driver in an out-of-control car, she finds her life shattered. Her in-laws essentially disown her and she struggles to make ends meet. Although exonerated from wrongdoing (the car had a flat tire), the driver of the car (Mishima-san) sends her small amounts of money as compensation. When he is transferred from Tokyo as punishment for his "crime", he finds himself in her hometown where she has also returned to live with her sister-in-law (also a widow). Of course, Yumiko and Mishima keep running into each other, which brings pain and then possibly love. But to contemplate such a relationship also means to contemplate the cruel fate that brought them together - thus everything here is pain, pain, pain. After setting up the situation quickly, Naruse allows the relationship to develop slowly with many carefully observed moments (and his usual attention to money and the tensions it brings), dwelling on the characters' suffering and cruelly snatching away any hope. See more 10/23/2011 Naruse's last film, an elegant, depressing romance between a widow and the remorseful driver who accidentally killed her husband. As with Naruse's best films, which this is one, the conventions of society, economy, modesty, and tradition act as barriers to any kind of long term happiness. With a sweeping, typically lovely score by Toru Takemitsu. See more 09/18/2010 Soigne et plutot touchant, mais on n'y retrouve pas le style Naruse. See more 06/28/2010 one of my favorite naruse See more Read all reviews

Scattered Clouds

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