1956 ‘流れる’ Directed by Mikio Naruse
Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mother's trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portraits the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.
Kinuyo Tanaka Isuzu Yamada Hideko Takamine Mariko Okada Haruko Sugimura Sumiko Kurishima Chieko Nakakita Natsuko Kahara Seiji Miyaguchi Daisuke Katō Nobuo Nakamura Kumeko Otowa Hideko Ebata Chiyo Izumi Masayoshi Kawabe Umekichi Kiyomoto Natsuko Matsumoto Fumindo Matsuo Yoshie Minami Noboru Nakaya Yutaka Sada Shin Tatsuoka Ichirô Tetsu Yasuhisa Tsutsumi Kichijirō Ueda Akemi Ueno Senkichi Ōmura
A la deriva, Nagareru, Au gré du courant, Поток, 흐르다, Correnteza, По течению, 流浪记, 流逝
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"Found family," a phrase I rarely ever use so as not to diminish its weight yet cannot find a film more apt for it than this. Naruse is known for his soft-spoken family dramas (so soft they might hardly be dramatic) but it is here, late in his career, that he captures a rendition of found family so subtle in its dynamics that it feels wholly true to real experiences. At least much the same as mine, finding myself in the position of Oharu (we're both asian and go by a name that isn't our birth one, she's just like me fr) who despite being the latest acts as the connective tissue connecting all the others, others who may have…
Even more so than Hitchcock, although not quite in the same psychoanalytical terms, Naruse Mikio had a penchant for doubling his characters, especially women. As Chris Fujiwara has rightly pointed out, it is fairly common for a Naruse heroine to have a "rival or mirror image, whom she finds waiting when she turns a new corner, who legitimately possesses the man to whom the heroine has at best a moral or sentimental claim, or who stands as a living reproach to the heroine."
From No Blood Relations (1932) (in which it's a child, not a man, at the center of the conflict) to Yearning (1964) (remember the wayward young woman who wanders into the shop one day?), from Wife! Be…
"A geisha house may seem glamorous from the outside, but it's not always fun."
Finding the burden of choice burdensome indeed and having recently admired a Mikio Naruse film whose English title took the form of a gerund (Yearning), I arbitrarily decided to watch his 1956 effort Flowing (流れる). Despite this admittedly idiotic motivation, I was rewarded with a solidly unpretentious slice of Japanese postwar cultural malaise. Co-written by Toshiro Ide and Sumie Tanaka from a novel by Aya Kōda, Naruse's film drops the viewer in medias res within a failing Tokyo okiya (geisha house) as seen through the hyper-empathic eyes of widowed maid Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka). Despite Oharu's status as audience surrogate, the narrative revolves around the embattled proprietress…
"but i don't know how long i can carry on with my willfullness."
flowing é o meu segundo filme do diretor mikio naruse e me lembrou muito as abordagens do ozu e também do kenji mizoguchi, principalmente street of shame e também when a woman ascends the stairs do próprio naruse.
esta obra é a adaptação de um livro de kodo aya e, na trama, se acompanha uma viúva, a rika, em circunstâncias financeiras irremediáveis, que se força a trabalhar como empregada doméstica em um prédio onde gueixas trabalham, em tóquio
naruse faz questão de abordar a decadência que assolou as "profissões" prostituição, no japão após as guerras, e ele faz isso de maneira implícita, não exibe os afazeres das…
Flowing begins at a precarious point in Japanese history when the traditional geisha found their way of life challenged by the onslaught of modernity and prostitution. It concerns Rika, a widow whose financial circumstances force her to take a housemaid assignment in a failing Tokyo geisha house named Tsuta. Naruse reveals, through Rika's eyes, the mistress's struggles to keep the house from disintegrating. We're also introduced to the individual geishas, who quarrel with one another partly due to their own uncertain future.
The titles suggests a flow of time and life and Naruse often uses the symbol of the river for expressive effect. He also uses lightning and a rainstorm for dramatic purposes. Moreover, the film contains a number of…
"Nagareru" aka "Flowing" (love the title and it's meaning, btw) was an interesting/captivating and somewhat sad movie but definitely a joy to watch for its outstanding cast and their performances, IMO.
The plot, based on a novel, revolves around the events of a reputed geisha house and the several obstacles it's immersed in. More importantly, it's also about the particular woes and hardships that befall the several (core) characters across the length.
The cast is outrageously amazing 😍
Kinuyo Tanaka is sort of the "eye in the storm" as the maid (of all things) and she's superb throughout in her part. Isuzu Yamada (winner of the best actress award) plays the owner of the Geisha House and, quietly, is quite…
93/100
Flowing indeed, this flows superbly. This was so beautiful and touching. This kinda reminded me of Late Chrysanthemums structurally, there it was about the lives of retired geishas and here it is about the slow death of once famous geisha house and the struggles of women living in it. This geisha house basically is a stand-in for the whole decaying geisha business and their dying popularity in postwar Japan. Primarily followed through the eyes of Oharu, we get to see the mistress struggle hard to keep her house from going under. Naruse once again wonderfully observes details of the day to day lives with some fully fleshed out characters. Also Naruse's ability to balance different tones of situations was…
Starring some of the most Famous Japanese Actresses of the 50's, the Film tells of a Dept-ridden Geisha House, the Efforts to Secure the Future of the House and the everyday Lives of the Women who live and work there.
A Beautiful, Calm and Interesting Movie with great Actresses, of which I Particularly liked Kinuyo Tanaka and Hideko Takamine.
A portrait of a geisha stripped from its eroticism, in all its pragmatical humanity, life just like a boat floating on a river, flowing with uncertainty, dodging eventual obstacles, trying to find its path but not sure which one it is. Post-war economic hardships, female struggle in a male chauvinistic environment, perfect dramaturgy and intelligent narrative - basically a full Naruse joint.
You know Mikio Naruse has deep empathy for his characters because he lets them feel. He does not try to rescue them in conversations or in editing or in directing. His characters sit through a hard conversation and they must still exist in the specificity of their spaces — matters of interiority and exteriority developed in tandem.
In this Geisha house, the women who work it, and their madam who runs it, are afforded humanity before they are given conflict. Naruse can feel the pulse of the drama and gives such exacting, clear direction that his characters have extra-fine dimensionality even in this twilight night-shot black-and-white where the lighting is always dim, something about the characters shines a…
Reminiscent of Naruse's own Late Chrysanthemums and Mizoguchi's Street of Shame but better than both. There's a good amount of characters without a real "main" character, and they are all developed well. One of Naruse's best so far.
Naruse's Flowing begins with gorgeous shots of water flowing gently in a river. There's so much meaning here. It summarizes life, but also the style and themes of Mikio Naruse in this film and throughout his career. What I love so much about Naruse's works, is that each of his films has this sadness inherent in them. Most of his characters have a sadness about them, that is contrasted against the happier outside world. Flowing is no exception.
The plot here is really interesting. The Tsuta House is a once-esteemed geisha house that has fallen in recent times. There's debt and women are leaving. Despite the characters seeming happy at various points, their sadness eventually breaks through. So much is…
