Fûfu

The younger daughter announces she will never get married, so her parents start looking for a husband. While this Ozu comedy plays out in the background, Mikio Naruse's drama gets underway. Ken Uehara returns to the Tokyo headquarters of his company, so the elder daughter, Yôko Sugi, his wife and he must find a place to live. They move into the house of his co-worker, Keiju Kobayashi, whose wife has just died. Miss Sugi tries to take care of both men, but there's never enough money, and Uehara gets the idea that his wife cares more for their landlord than him. Little problems get magnified. Ozu's world of upper management is clearly seen in the background, while Uehara's coat has its lining hanging out the back.

Has Naruse made a travesty of Ozu's comedies? I think not. Ozu's world clearly exists in this movie, but it's irrelevant to the issues here. No one in an Ozu movie would go to a cheap funfair. No one worries about money. No one thinks their wife might be carrying on an affair in Ozu's movies, and husbands don't lose interest in their wives because their breasts become less attractive after a couple of babies. As in Ozu's movies, no one will admit to having a problem; when Uehara asks Miss Sugi what's wrong, she says 'nothing'.... but something clearly is. Getting along with your spouse is work. There are problems that have to be worked out.... and sometimes the solutions are neither easy nor really satisfactory.

"Fûfu" (Husband and Wife, 1953) premiered three months before another Naruse picture, "Tsuma" (Wife, 1953). Despite both films being by the same director, both films being penned by Ide Toshiro, and both films starring Uehara Ken, Mikuni Rentaro and Nakakita Chieko, the films have no connection with one another. Nor do they have connections with the 20 or so other Naruse films with "Wife" or "Woman" in the title. Naruse's main target demographic was housewives and the studios apparently just decided to market the films with titles that didn't leave you guessing.

"Fûfu" is a middle-of-the-road Naruse film. He had spent the 1940's in relative qualitative slumber, but by 1950's he started to improve his game again. Between films like "Meshi" (Repast, 1951) and "Inazuma" (Lighting, 1952) and "Bangiku" (Late Chrysanthemums, 1954) and "Ukigumo" (Floating Clouds, 1955) "Fûfu" looks like a quickie production between the important ones. Much of Naruse's more mediocre entries suffer from tonal variety. This film starts off as a comedy, but then turns really sour, and is emotionally an uneven package. The film is about a married couple (Uehara Ken & Sugi Yoko), who rent a room for the husband's work chum, the widower played by Mikuni Rentaro. With his new buddies, the man finds new energy to live, and becomes very close with the wife, much to the annoyance of the husband. Very soon this grows into a marital crisis. After all, three's a crowd.

Naruse's directorial touch here, as well as in most of his films, is heavy and serious. He can do comedic works when likes to, as films like "Tsuma yo bara no yô ni" (Wife! Be Like a Rose, 1935) and "Tabi yakusha" (Travelling Actors, 1940) have shown, but he usually chooses to remain somewhat serious-minded. "Fûfu" is a film of which he can't get a proper hold. For a comedy, it's too gloomy, and for a drama, too light-weight. The film tries to re-consider the classic marital roles, as well as the boundaries of friendship, but is in the end poorly structured to do justice for either subject. I found the characters to be uneven and unlikable.

I have seen about 50 Naruse films, and while this is not one of the worst, it does fall behind his standards considerably.

The context here is tightly drawn in scope around a couple and their colleagues and friends, and the intended theme of marital discord is consistent and pervasive. The plot weaves around within these constraints, bringing out the various aspects of the eternal battle of the sexes. What do you do if your spouse is boring? How do you respond if your spouse is much admired? If your marriage is a cause of distress, whose fault is it? And how do you put it right? Good acting, if a little melodramatic and obvious compared with some of his other films. Effective use of limited interiors but little exterior work, so a more limited palette in sets and prominent cast than is sometimes the case. Really, it has a definite feel of a play turned into a film, with limited use of cinematic inspired techniques. As ever, interesting insights for foreigners like me into Japanese customs. An amusing script helps, as does an extremely watchable leading actress.

So, not one of Naruse's best, but all Naruse's are worth watching and this succeeds in being thoroughly entertaining, particularly if you are or have been married.