• 驟雨 (Sudden Rain), 4/21/18 (Sat)

Mikio Naruse’s 1956 portrait of a marriage. A young housewife Fumiko (a splendid Hara Setsuko) has given up a career in music for a stale and childless marriage with an aloof husband Ryotaro (Sano Shuji). Whatever relation they might have had has sunk into apathy and turgid conversation if any, as she indifferently carries out her wifely duties making him tea, doling out his stomach medicine, preparing his meals and so forth. He shows more interest in the young woman who’s just moved in next door, while her equally young husband is in turn attracted by Fumiko, though in a reflection of their inertia, little happens on either side. Fumiko takes pleasure only in caring for a stray dog that comes around occasionally for food, but even this is seen by her disapproving neighbors as encouraging the animal’s penchant for running off with people’s shoes and hats.

The husband, though threatened by a possible layoff at his company, still refuses to entertain his colleagues’ idea of setting up a business for his wife (“Let’s face it – it’s a woman’s world,” says one interestingly) despite her clear enthusiasm. He mulls going back to his family farm in the country, and the possibility of separation looms. In a cryptic ending, a paper balloon that two children have accidentally knocked into the garden is retrieved by Ryotaro and Fumiko, who beat it mercilessly back and forth to each other in a silent but furious battle as the kids watch open-mouthed. (I recalled the powerful closing image in Humanity and Paper Balloons.)

The movie is less bleak than neutral, as both sides perform their expected roles without taking action to make things better. It’s a picture of lethargy against the possibilities of change dangled before them: we sense that the husband will never return to his farm, and the occasional curious piano underscoring is a reminder of what the wife has left behind. The small acts of cruelty by the husband, such as purposely failing to mail the wife’s postcard when he goes out or taking the next-door housewife alone to a movie, are received with resignation by Fumiko.

That’s not to say the film is dark: those scenes are punctuated by humorous episodes like the visit from the newlywed niece (Kagawa Kyoko) with her trivial complaints about her new husband (she feels a lot better after seeing her aunt’s marriage), the bragging housewives in the shopping street, and the neighborhood meeting that devolves into petty grievances. But the sense at the end is that nothing will change for the couple, who will just persevere. The title seems misleading since there are no abrupt dramatic developments; maybe it’s being used ironically. The film is really more a series of incidents than a coherent story. Still, the portrait is fully drawn.

Hara Setsuko does some of her best work here in a performance of great subtlety. At one point, she rushes out in a worn jacket to meet her husband at a store and is embarrassed to pass an exquisitely kimonoed acquaintance of his, keeping her head down in hopes that she won’t be noticed. It was a beautifully rendered picture of her state of mind. There was also a lovely scene when she has gone out in the rain of the title with an umbrella to wait at the station for her husband, who never shows. She buys a sweet potato on her way back home as a small means of comfort. Terrific acting. Sano Shuji’s portrayal of the husband is less layered but feels real enough. The chatty housewives in the neighborhood are rather exaggerated, but Kagawa Kyoko gives a nice burst of modern (for the time) youth. A film worth seeing.