Scattered Clouds
(Midaregumo)
With Kayama Yuzo, Tsukasa Yoko, Kusabue Mitsuko.
Japan, 1967, 35mm, color, 108 min.
Japanese and English with English subtitles.
Print source: The Japan Foundation
With Naruse's towering final film Scattered Clouds, the motifs harnessed throughout a prolific career—a shared bar of chocolate, a sudden downpour of rain, an unplanned stay at an inn—become sensuous stimuli for a relationship that is neither friendship nor courtship. Precariously employed Yukiko (Tsukasa Yoko) receives monthly payments from Shiro (Kayama Yuzo), who killed her husband in a car accident. Her decision to move home and Shiro's new post in the same town catalyzes a series of encounters that satisfy a mutual need to be desired and a hunger for meaning that pierces through the film's protracted wordlessness. A major influence on Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love (2000), Scattered Clouds is a testament to the humanity Naruse located in the sheer act of wanting, even without the clarity of knowing who or what to want. – Kelley Dong
Part of film series
Upcoming screenings from this program
Every-Night Dreams
