The Cinematheque

“Naruse, ever the great meteorologist of emotion, delivers one of his finest melodramas in this elegiac, bittersweet swan song.”

Andréa Picard, TIFF

The exquisite last testament of Naruse Mikio, dying of cancer during its production, is a sombre portrait of love’s futility in the inescapable shadow of tragedy. Tsukasa Yoko (of Ozu’s Late Autumn and The End of Summer) is young Yumiko, devoted wife to a husband who on the eve of their departure to America is involved in a fatal car crash. Shiro (Kayama Yuzo, Yearning), the driver, is acquitted of wrongdoing but tormented by the accident and the anguish of widowed Yumiko. Gradually the two strangers, bound by trauma and self-reproach, form a closeness. Set to a haunting score by Takemitsu Toru, a disciple of John Cage, and shot in TohoScope in a muted, earthen colour palette, Naruse’s final picture is a melancholic capstone to a career-long obsession with life’s unfailing disappointments.

In Japanese with English subtitles

“A poignant exploration of guilt, loss, the complexity of love, and the cruel irony of fate, underscored by Naruse’s signature restraint and empathy for the frailty inherent to the human condition.”

Cat Beckstrand, Screen Slate