La luna se levanta

The coded telegrams with digits were cute:

3755: a number for a poem in the Manyoshu, by Lady Otomo of Sakanoue. "Her beauty radiates over mountains and rivers that separate and incapacitate."

The reply, 666: "Little time has passed since I last saw you, yet I only think of how much I adore you."

This is a romantic melodrama in the fashion of Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters, with a little dash of Maupassant via his novella Moonlight, said here to be the one where "strangers fall in love under the moon." Mostly it consists of a spunky young woman (Mie Kitahara) trying to maneuver her older sister (Yoko Sugi) into a relationship with a man, followed by her own little mini-drama with a family friend who could be more than that to her. It's a tad too prim and staid for my taste, with harmonious family interactions the general rule, complete with the gentle and beatific father straight out of Ozu (and played by Chishu Ryu no less). The tone is not something I'm not a big fan of, feeling too wholesome to the point of being saccharine, but it had its moments, all of which came from Mie Kitahara for me. I liked the visuals from Kinuyo Tanaka but not the slow pacing, and the script left me wanting a little sizzle.

Chishu Rye lives in a monastery in Osaka with his two daughters and his widowed daughter-in-law. The daughters are in love, but the path of true love never did run smooth.

Kinuyo Tanaka's second movie as director is from a script co-written by her frequent director, Yasujiro Ozu. It's certainly the sort of movie he would make, although Miss Tanaka handles it far more broadly and in in a visual style far from Ozu's. She uses a lot of moving shots, and instead of the shots from the tatami looking up, there's one that seems to be deliberately contrary: a shot from on high, looking down at someone on the mat. But it does have the story-telling hallmarks of Ozu's comedies, with discussion of how microwave transmission is making telephone calls faster and a daughter, not a parent, trying to arrange the marriage of a sister.

Indeed, the visuals are often exquisite under the direction of lighting director Shigeyoshi Mine, with the serene temples, mountains, and full moon contrasting well with the seemingly inchorent nature of young love. With Shuji Sano, Hisako Yamane, Yôko Sugi, Mie Kitahara, and Miss Tanaka in a small role.