A poignant study of a disintegrating marriage, the film is told from the point of view of a childless young wife who longs to escape her dreary routine and return to her family in Tokyo. When she finally does, she finds a defeated post-war city now occupied by a foreign army, which is at odds with the Tokyo of her memories. Naruse's mature style took full bloom here; framings are rigid and settings sparse, with a minimum of technical flourish, yet this calm seems, and is, unnatural, with tensions seething below its surface. It was also with Repast that Naruse discovered the novels of Fumiko Hayashi, an important feminist author; over the next decade, Naruse would adapt many of her important works for the screen.