A Hen in the Wind
(Kaze no naka no mendori)
With Tanaka Kinuyo, Sano Shuji, Miyake Kuniko.
Japan, 1948, 35mm, black & white, 84 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: HFA
Ozu referred to his second postwar film as one of his “bad failures.” Audiences and critics likewise were mixed on the film, deemed by some as derivative and overly melodramatic. However, the frankness with which Ozu addresses ruptured prewar dreams and postwar losses make the film an incredibly valuable work, providing the foundation for the wartime anecdotes told by characters in Ozu’s later films. While waiting for her husband Shuichi’s repatriation, Tokiko (Tanaka) turns to sex work to pay for her son’s hospital bills. When Shuichi (Sano Shuji) returns, the trauma of political violence triggers acts of domestic violence. The premise of A Hen in the Wind (and its casting of Tanaka Kinuyo as a woman faced with overwhelming hardship) invokes the films of Mizoguchi, but Ozu’s take on a common subject of Occupation films—the gender difference in men and women’s postwar experiences—emphasizes a day-to-day perseverance without the escape of martyrdom. Therefore, A Hen in the Wind continues well after Tokiko’s sacrifice and after Shuichi’s return, as the couple decides how to continue—not with a smile but with tears and gritted teeth.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Late Spring
Tokyo Story
Early Summer
Passing Fancy
Dragnet Girl
Tokyo Story
A Story of Floating Weeds
Days of Youth
The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice
Early Spring
The Munekata Sisters
Floating Weeds
Good Morning
Late Autumn
Tokyo Twilight
The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family
I Flunked, But …
Late Autumn
Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?
The End of Summer
Early Spring
Café Lumière
Tokyo Story
