Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1955 • Japan
Starring Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Mariko Okada
“Short is the life of flowers, infinite their sorrows . . .” Director Mikio Naruse’s most famous film in Japan is a haunting portrait of obsessive love in a ruined world. Set amid the bombed-out landscapes of postwar Japan, FLOATING CLOUDS stars the director’s frequent collaborator, the heartbreaking Hideko Takamine, as a woman who returns from working in French Indochina with hopes of resuming her relationship with a married man (Masayuki Mori) with whom she had an affair—leading them both into a self-destructive spiral of hurt and anger. Drifting dreamily in and out of present reality and memories, it builds with quiet force toward one of Naruse’s most exquisitely devastating finales.
Up Next in Directed by Mikio Naruse
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Flunky, Work Hard
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1931 • Japan
Starring Isamu Yamaguchi, Tomoko Naniwa, Seiichi KatoMikio Naruse’s earliest available film, FLUNKY, WORK HARD is the rare work by the director not to center around female characters. It is a charming, breezy short concerning an impoverished insurance sal...
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No Blood Relation
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1932 • Japan
Starring Shinyo Nara, Yukiko Tsukuba, Hisako KojimaIn NO BLOOD RELATION, a gripping early example of Mikio Naruse’s cinematic boldness, featuring a screenplay by Yasujiro Ozu’s famed collaborator Kogo Noda, an actress returns to Tokyo after a successful s...
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Apart from You
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1933 • Japan
Starring Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Akio Isono, Sumiko MizukuboFor APART FROM YOU, Mikio Naruse turned his camera on the lives of working women, which he would continue to do throughout his long career. In this gently devastating drama, a critical breakthrough fo...
