Midareru

I was really astonished to see so few reviews on such a great movie.

Yearning (A woman in upheaval in its French title, Midareru in Japanese - being disturbed) is a movie that deserves your attention. And not only if you like Japan. Of course, it is really characteristic of Japanese culture at that time and the change that proceeds in this country at that time, beginning to shift from tradition to modernity. But it is also the wonderful tale a the relationship between two people and how the social constraint applies to them. And how this relationship begin to shift (yes, like the country itself, however not in the same way).

Emotion, society, money, this movies addresses a lot of topics but do not forget to follow its story. Helped with a great acting, with a beautiful female lead characer, it is a successful movie in every aspects. Do take your time to enjoy it!

I saw this film in French, with the title "Une Femme Dans La Tourmente". A year later I still think about it. Postwar Japan is gearing up for the period of "rapid growth", and many of the small family-owned businesses and the families that run them are being swept away. Reiko has supported her late husband's family with her indefatigable work throughout the war and still cooks, cleans and takes up the slack. The family was quite happy to take advantage of her hard work during the hard days, but now that their remaining son is old enough to marry they find her an embarrassment. The son is a lazy young man, used to going with the flow and frankly not trying very hard at anything. When a modern supermarket chain comes to their area, many small shops are going to the wall. Should they continue to struggle on as they are, or sell out for what they can get? Reiko faces her own decision: stay or go? And if she goes, where?

The first part of this film makes it look like its main focus is going to be on one of the perils of capitalism, that of large companies driving smaller ones out of business by moving into a neighborhood and undercutting them on prices, kind of like a much more serious version of Supermarket Woman (1996). I thought my review might start with, people, if you value your mom and pop shops, for the of god, stop shopping at Walmart and Amazon. That is certainly a component here, but this film broadens into so much more, dealing with societal expectations for Japanese women and slowly developing an incredibly touching romance.

Hideko Takemine plays Reiko, the widowed daughter-in-law who has been running a grocery store for her in-law family for 18 years, since the end of WWII. She built the store on her own while the rest of the family fled to the countryside to avoid Allied bombing, and lost her beloved husband to the war. A large supermarket moves in and begins taking her shop's business, but worse yet, her sisters-in-law, their husbands, and her mother-in-law have hatched a plan to tear down the grocery and build a supermarket of their own. Despite everything she's done for them, they want her out of the picture, either through re-marriage or relegation to a minor job in the new store.

Resisting this plan is the younger brother (Yuzo Kayama), who was just 7 years old when his brother met Reiko, so perhaps 10-15 years younger than her. (I was surprised this was the actual age difference between Kayama and Takemine, since Takemine at 40 looks so young and is absolutely gorgeous, but I digress.) The younger brother is a bit of a profligate, gambling, sleeping around with women, and staying out to all hours and getting drunk. He stands up for Reiko, and we soon find out that in addition to his sense of fairness, it's because he harbors feelings for her.

Reiko seems like the epitome of ideal womanhood, something which is as limiting as it is unfair. She holds a torch for her late husband with no desire to remarry, and selflessly works away with a smile. She would rather sacrifice her own feelings than complain or cause antagonism. Her emotions are generally well concealed, but Takemine is masterful in revealing them as the story places out. Watch the look of shock and horror on her face when the younger man declares himself, the tears coming to her eyes on the train, or her conflicted look when denying him even after admitting she loves him. She's brilliant.

It seems like it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to be happy in a new marriage, but she's weighted down with feeling a need to stay loyal to her dead husband, what others will think about the age difference, and how she'll be ruining this young guy's promising life. She's a genuinely virtuous person, but I got the sense that she had also internalized too much of the societal expectation to be perfectly selfless. A long, overnight train ride through the country and growing attachment between the pair leads to swirling emotions and unforgettable scenes, played so well by both Takemine and Kayama. Great stuff from Mikio Naruse.

Mikio Naruse's film Yearning reflects the significant social change occurring in Japan in 1964 when supermarkets began to offer cheaper prices in order to drive out the small shops which had dominated the market. This changing structure particularly affects Reiko (Hideko Takamine), a widow since the last war after only being married for six months. She has remained with her husband's family to run the family grocery store along with her mother-in-law Shizu (Aiko Mamasu) while brother-in-law Koji (Yûzô Kayama), and sister-in-laws Hisako (Mitsuko Kusabue) and Takako (Yumi Shirakawa) live their own private lives. Takamine's remarkable performance as the repressed widow conveys a longing for a freedom that has been elusive.

The film opens as a van parades the streets advertising the supermarket, driving past Reiko's store in the process. Shot in Naruse's quiet style, the film is a study in contrasts. Reiko is a woman with traditional values who has repressed her own desire for companionship to serve her husband's family, while Koji is a layabout who drinks and gambles and takes no responsibility for the family business. When a group of drunken businessman pressure bar girls to see how many eggs they can stuff into their mouths, Koji intervenes and starts a fight leaving Reiko to bail him out of jail. Koji and his sisters make plans to build their own supermarket, but conspicuously leave Reiko out of their plans, urging her to remarry.

Reiko is hurt by the family's seeming lack of appreciation for her service. She is accepting of her role, but emotionally unprepared when Koji surprisingly confesses to her that he loves her. Though Reiko initially rejects his advances, she tells him later: "when you said you loved me, I felt glad," and "I've been a different woman since that day." She is unable, however, to accept Koji's telling her that she has wasted her life for his family. Though she hears the words, she is too bound to the past to be able to acknowledge their truth. She tells Koji, "I didn't waste my life. I lived it," but she is not convincing. The entire mood of the film changes with Koji's declaration and the way their relationship unfolds constitutes the emotional core of the film and provides its most dramatic moments and its shattering conclusion.

I have binge watching Naruse films and have liked all but one. Yearning may be the moving both as a love story and as a story of social change. The theme of small businesses being run out by large corporations is as timely today in the US as it was in 1964 Japan. The two leads are terrific and have great chemistry. Highly recommended