Directed by Mikio Naruse
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Criterion Eclipse)
Naruse sets his story this time in a busy Tokyo cafe. One of the waitresses gets a proposal from her boyfriend. However, she is hit by a car driven by a wealthy man. The boyfriend disappears to the country during her hospital stay and the wealthy driver falls in love with her. They eventually marry, but living with his uppity mother and sister proves more than she can bear. Separated, he gets in a car accident, leading to the final confrontation between wife, mother and sister in his hospital room. Naruse relies too much on car accidents as a plot device, in this and previous films as well. The romance between the two leads was obviously ill-advised: they appeared greatly different in age, temperament and social standing, so it was not exactly surprising that the marriage failed. Still, an interesting glimpse into the daily lives of early 1930s Tokyo dwellers, including some behind-the-scenes movie studio locations.
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