Last Updated on January 22, 2021 by rob
Yajima (Shin Saburi) the middle-aged friend of a deceased former schoolteacher offers to take the dead man’s orphaned daughter Takako (Setsuko Hara) into his household. But even as Takako settles in with Yajima’s young children she and her benefactor soon develop romantic feelings for each other as Yajima’s wife lies seriously ill in hospital.
A pleasant and well crafted melodrama with a touching performance from Japanese star Setsuko Hara, a rather plain looking woman but one equipped with a dazzling 1,000 watt smile that she uses here to luminous effect. Kaneto Shindo’s script adroitly juggles the requirements of the US occupation authorities – there’s a subtle but pointed discussion between Hara and Saburi over the necessity of sweeping away the old feudal order as it pertains to Japanese households and replacing it with a democratic model – with a theme he would return to again and again; the struggle of women to transcend the hardship and suffering of their daily lives. Directed with some cinematic flair by Kozaburo Yoshimura, especially the final scene of Takako being welcomed home during a snowy winter’s evening. She taps on the window which Yajima opens and then he reaches through to literally lift Takako off the ground and into the room. The way Yoshimura shoots the scene – breaking the action down to highlight the vertical movement of Takako’s body, the way her feet seem to rise weightless into the air – is as apt a visual metaphor for Shindo’s theme as one could wish and a deservedly happy ending.
