Floating Clouds (1955) User Reviews

Not a masterpiece, but a great demonstration of a director's craft.

[Red-125 · 8/10 · 19 April 2006]

Ukigumo (1955), directed by Mikio Naruse, was shown as "Floating Clouds" at the Dryden Theatre in Rochester as part of a Naruse retrospective. This is Naruse's best-known film, and it stars his muse, the outstanding actor Hideko Takamine. The film is adapted from a novel by Fumiko Hayashi. Seven or eight of Naruse's films were based on novels by this author. Finally, many of the Toho studio supporting players appear in this movie, as they do in all of Naruse's films. In summary, "Floating Clouds" is classic Naruse.

As in many Naruse films, the theme is grim. Japan is still struggling in the aftermath of World War II. The economy is slow, and the pall of defeat still hangs over the country.

Although we think of the war as totally tragic for everyone involved--especially everyone Japanese--this isn't accurate. Hideko Takamine's character (Yukiko) had a passionate and sincere wartime romance with an engineer when they were both stationed in an area away from the combat zone. It becomes clear--ten years later--that this love affair was the high point of both their lives. Masuki Mori plays Kengo, the engineer who loves Yukiko, but who will never marry her.

The tragedy of the film is that both Yukiko and Kengo have known happiness, but realize they will never know it again. Such happiness as they can grasp is undone by the harsh realities of financial and physical problems.

This movie is not exactly a masterpiece, but it is the perfect film if you can only see one work by Naruse. It defines his themes, demonstrates his unique skills and extraordinary expertise, and showcases the best actors in his company. It's a movie worth seeking out and watching.

Obsessive love

[kerpan · 9/10 · 22 May 2003]

"Ukigumo" covers a considerable span of time and numerous locations. It tells the story of a young woman (Hideko Takamine) who served in Japan's forest service in Indochina during WW2, and fell in love with a (married) co-worker (Masayuki Mori) while there. After the war, she returns to Japan, completely impoverished, and finds her lover (more or less) comfortably re-established in his family and uninterested in fulfilling the idle promises he made during the war. While Mori is only willing to dally half-heartedly with her (as well as younger prettier women), Takamine remains obsessed with him. Takamine and Mori do a fine job. I found the story effective enough, albeit a bit overly melodramatic. Not my favorite Naruse film, but very much worth seeing.

A Nutshell Review: Floating Clouds

[DICK STEEL · 7/10 · 24 August 2008]

If you're looking for a movie that deals with clingy relationships, then Floating Clouds is without a doubt a movie that fits the bill to a T. Directed by Naruse Mikio and based upon the novel by Fumiko Hayashi, the female character in the movie will bring back memories of those who have had to deal with such stifling clinging, and well, for those who do act as such, a stark and accurate portrayal that would be akin to holding up a mirror and looking at oneself.

Hideko Takamine put up a commendable, if not personally what I deem as a remarkably irritating performance as Yukiko Koda, a woman perhaps with little self-esteem and respect, who decided to sacrifice an entire forest for one singular tree. Being sent to Indochina during WWII, she chances upon Kengo Tomioka (Masayuki Mori), and while he seemed to be prim and proper, and not giving her a second glance, soon they fall in love with each other, one despite having a wife back home, and the other, knowingly being the other woman.

But when the war ends and they get repatriated back to Japan, she looks him up, only to discover that he will not leave his wife, nor to rekindle their passion started in a foreign land. To make things worse, she discovers he's quite the cad, and to compound the problem, her insecurities and her paranoia makes you wonder why she can't afford to sever ties. It's one thing being made to suffer from unrequited love, but it's another if you are made to suffer deliberately, and bear witness to the insincerity of the other party. Running slightly over 2 hours, it does take its time to showcase the sorry state that Yukiko undergoes.

You can't really find fault with Naruse Mikio's direction of the movie - the handling of the narrative structure in the first act was deft, with the transition of time seamless, and the actors do their job to allow you to connect with their characters. However, like I mentioned, perhaps Yukiko Koda did such a fine job, that for me I found her to be a tad too irritating, even for my liking.

The third of the triumvirate

[jandesimpson · 25 April 2013]

Ot the three senior directors who dominated the golden age of Japanese cinema, Mikio Naruse is the least known in the West. This could be partly due to the fact that unlike his contemporaries, Mizoguchi and Ozu, his cinematic language was more conventional and less innovative. And yet, if one looks long and hard, it becomes possible to identify stylistic trademarks that could be uniquely his, characters that are forever walking and interiors that are often shot from the centre of a room looking towards a corner. The very title is a metaphor for characters that are drifting their lives away with very little sense of purpose. The tragic couple, Yukiko and Kengo, who met in French Indo-China during the second world war when they were engaged on a forestry project find themselves drifting when they meet up again in a post-war Japan soured with defeat and despair. Generally when we see them they are walking, often through urban landscapes of a Tokyo desolate and scarred by the immediate past. They are always on the move in the manner almost of characters in a road movie to wherever they can travel, be it to a sad holiday resort out of season or a remote island drenched by rain that hardly ever stops. But their relationship is doomed partly because whatever passion they may feel for one another is always curiously out of sync with each other's. Their personalities are also deeply flawed to the extent that neither is able to cope with the social disadvantages of being part of a defeated nation. It has been said that defeat left many professional Japanese men feeling emotionally emasculated. This is certainly true of Kengo. As for Yukika, she has none of the stoicism of Mizoguchi's long suffering female protagonists. Dissatisfaction with her lot has left her whingeing with self pity. ""Floating Clouds" is a deeply pessimistic film in a way that Kurosawa's "The Silent Duel", which deals with a pair of lovers living through the similar period of the immediate aftermath of war, is not. Ultimately Kurosawa's characters come to terms with misfortune in a way that presages a future of some hope. Both films no doubt reflect their directors' widely different temperaments.

You Can't Fight Fate

[crossbow0106 · 10/10 · 25 July 2009]

This is a story about a couple who met in French Indo-China working for the Forestry Department for Japan. The story is ultimately about the time they spend once they return to Japan, which is somewhat tumultuous, as her is married. They do not spend the whole film together, at times Tomioka is with his wife and he even leaves Yukiko for another still younger woman, Osei. If this sounds like a tear-jerking soap opera, it kind of is. However, the movie is a powerful tale of love, betrayal and obsession. The beautiful Hideko Takamine (at times, I don't think she was ever more beautiful in a film) is excellent in a very challenging role, conjuring raw emotions often. At times you are torn between them even wanting to be together and I think that is what gives the film its compelling nature. If you are not fond of heavy drama, this is not your film. I feel the acting is superb (again, especially Ms. Takamine) and the story very watchable. Another great film by Mikio Naruse.

Naruse's masterpiece and one of Japan's greatest films

[bjmorris-99805 · 10/10 · 17 June 2022]

I absolutely love this film... in fact it is my favourite film. It's hard therefore to come to terms with some of the less than stellar reviews here, although ultimately we all have differing tastes and I'd be the first to admit that this is not for folk who require lots of action or who are intolerant of romantic drama. However I would argue that it is a film of considerable depth and even importance. In Japan, this film has long sat in the "Kinema Junpo" list of greatest movies of the twentieth century... at number 3, beaten only by Ozu's "Tokyo Story" and Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai".

The director, Mikio Naruse, is often referred to as the "other" great director of the postwar "golden age" of Japanese cinema, alongside Ozu, Kurosawa and Mizoguchi. His films are emphatically not for action junkies, being closest in pace and themes to those of Yasujiro Ozu, although lacking Ozu's distinctive flair for visual composition. They are however characterised by what is often referred to as "naturalistic pessimism", in which their usually female protagonists generally engage in an ultimately futile battle against the hand that fate has dealt them. So, another demographic that will not enjoy his work are optimists. Most of his films are in closed domestic or "water trade" (hospitality) scenarios and focussed relentlessly but fatalistically on familial dysfunction, together with the material imperatives of money and it's scarcity.

"Floating Clouds", or "Ukigumo", is however the one Naruse film that has managed to appeal to a wider audience than most of his work.

On the surface, this is simply a romantic melodrama involving very flawed human beings.. but one which is rooted in the Japanese experience of conquest, war, defeat and occupation. It powerfully conveys the grim realities of the occupation years, but also hints at colonial guilt and the emotional costs of national defeat. As in all Naruse films, money and material hardships are never far from the focus.. but into this is this... well, love story. Or hate story. Or tale of self-loathing. It is an adaptation of a novel by Fumiko Hayashi, who appears to have shared Naruse's pessimism about life, since the director adapted several of her stories for the screen and even made a filmic biography of her ("A Wanderer's Notebook", aka "Her Lonely Lane", 1962).

This film has a far more open feeling than one usually gets with Naruse. There is more outdoor shooting and a far wider variety of sets. Ranging from the humid jungles of "Indo China" (Vietnam) through a cold and ruined Tokyo to a Southern seaport on Kyushu (Kagoshima) and a rain drenched island on the edge of the archipelago, there is no more peripatetic Naruse film. There are more actors too, although the focus never strays from the two principals, "Yukiko" (Hideko Takamine) and "Tomioka" (Masayuki Mori).

A huge part of this movie's appeal lies in the performances of Takamine and Mori. Hideko Takamine was one of the three greatest mid-century female Japanese actors, alongside Setsuko Hara and Kinuyo Tanaka, and enjoyed an extraordinary level of affection from the public over a career that began as a very young child in the 1920s and ended in the late 1970s. Here, she is magnificent.... it is simply hard to believe that what you are watching is "acting". Every feeling she displays.. and there are many.. is utterly visceral and totally believable... while Mori, unquestionably one of the most accomplished of Japan's male cinema actors, also gives one of the greatest performances of his career.

I read that Takamine was originally reluctant to accept the role of "Yukiko", but Naruse's insistence has left us with what is undoubtedly one of the greatest performances in all of Japanese Cinema. She had an extraordinary facility for "silent emoting" that is best seen in her work for Naruse, and emphatically so here. Watch out for the "kiss scene", and her breathtakingly powerful yet wordless reaction.

There are some strong supporting performances as well from Daisuke Kato, Isao Yamagata and Mariko Okada, and some wonderful little vignettes that are best withheld in the interest of avoiding spoilers, but which help imbue the film with it's powerful sense of time and place. Like Kurosawa's "Rashomon" this film deploys "back and forth" time shifting to tell a tale that largely takes place in the immediate postwar period, but also harks back to a colonial experience prior to Japan's defeat.

It is to my eyes a fabulous tale, enacted to the highest standard, and within the context of the immediate postwar moment. It holds a special place in the affections of many Japanese precisely because of the exemplary melding of history and emotion. However, even though this is as frenetic and action packed as a Naruse film ever gets, it still demands, and rewards, patience. These films were made for a more reflective and less distracted audience than the typical modern cinema crowd, and that includes those of Japan. By the second half of the 1960s, the "golden age" was over, with the film-making of the old masters like Naruse seen as too slow and anachronistic. What a legacy though.... If you have seen and enjoyed "Tokyo Story" (aka "the greatest Japanese film ever made"), then try this.... More melodramatic, certainly, less distinctive visually, but with an epic scale, always measured and beautifully acted... and speaking far more directly to the long national agony of Japan under militarism and occupation.

Fatal Fixation In A Meandering Soaper.

[net_orders · 7/10 · 29 May 2017]

FLOATING CLOUDS (UKIGUMO). Viewed on Streaming. Subtitles = seven (7) stars; continuity/editing = four (4) stars; restoration = three (3) stars; score = three (3) stars. Director Mikio Naruse's bitter love story (based on a still-in-print novel with the same name) of a woman's pathological romantic attraction to a cold-heart-ed, womanizing loser set before, during, and after the War in the Pacific. Naruse's favorite veteran actress Hideko Takamine (see below) holds this rather fragmented film (the tale is told mostly in flash backs and flash forwards) together by playing multiple variations on one basic role. It's quite a performance (or rather a nuanced set of performances!). The narrative wanders about quite a bit (as do the protagonists). Starting off in Tokyo (from which Takamine's character flees to escape being a De Facto household sex slave); to Malaysia (now modern Viet Nam) and a remote forestry service operation (where the lovers first meet before and remain during the war); to seemingly all over devastated Tokyo (where the repatriated protagonists engage in an endless on-off, love-hate affair); and to a remote forestry station this time on a small (and inhospitable) island south of Kyushu (where the lovers end up). Along the way, the Director does a fair amount of editorializing such as exhibiting his preference for mixed-bathing Onsen and demonstrating one reliable way to get rich quick (start your own religion). Naruse also raises a series of question marks on the viewer's forehead: not much examination/explanation of the psychology behind a stunning, smart, and independent woman's continued attraction to a not-particularly-bright, inferior wastrel; the uncanny ability of the protagonists to always find each other's latest room/apartment in the jumble and chaos of post-war Japan; and the unchanging beauty (even when playing dead) of Takamine's character over what seems to be decades of to and fro (perhaps Naruse couldn't bare messing with the beauty of his lead actress?). Leading actor Masayuki Mori creates a well-defined, self-centered character (the object of deep-seated affection for Takamine's character), but ends up playing at most a supporting role for the actress (Takamine easily steals every scene she is in). Actor Daisuke Katô appears in a humorous cameo role where he is seen buying Mori's high-end new watch ostensibly for cash, but with the real price being the loss of his new wife to Mori's character (with tragic results). Takamine's spectrum of portrayals is simply fascinating to watch. Line reading dynamics, facial expressions, and body language--she employs them all! Her repertoire includes: an innocent appearing but sophisticated and determined young seductress (working as a secretary/typist in Malaysia); playing prostitutes at various levels on the financial-success "food chain"; eye-blink switching from a subservient, passive role to one of complete dominance (in most/all scenes with Mori's character); undergoing an abortion in a performance that does not run afoul of the occupation censors; playing a sick and dying (due to tuberculosis) character who is all but dragged into a climate sure to kill her; on and on. Restoration remains a work in progress. (And this was streamed off the new FilmStruck/Criterion site no less!) The print looks old and gray. Artifacts often appear where reels would seem to have been spliced together originally. Visual wear lines can be seen here and there. Audio artifacts are particularly noticeable during the first third of the movie. Opening credits exhibit jitters. Cinematography (narrow screen, gray and off/on white) seems okay, but some interior scenes are a bit under-lit. Continuity suffers from excessive/poor editing (perhaps to just reduce running time?) with discordant jump cuts occurring particularly during the middle third of the film. Score wanders all over the place (from sort of Middle Eastern to vaguely Hawaiian to melodramatic lush violins) and usually distracts from (rather than adds to) scenes. Subtitles are close enough and often a necessity due to lines delivered in different dialects (sometimes used to make minor plot points). Recommended especially for soap-box opera enthusiasts (and especially if/when restoration is completed). WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

Riveting at times, but ultimately tedious

[wjfickling · 8/10 · 15 March 2003]

This at first appears to be a riveting study of human relationships, and it is entertaining. But ultimately it never gets beyond the level of a high class soaper, and it goes on far too long. Calling it a soaper is by no means pejorative; I am a dedicated fan of Douglas Sirk. But Sirk never took himself as seriously as the makers of this film appear to, and that makes it all the more ponderous. Worth seeing, however.

The More Miserable They Are, The More Sincere

[boblipton · 7/10 · 8 June 2019]

Hideko Takamine and Masayuki Mori had an affair in Indo-China during the Second World War. Now they have returned to a conquered Japan, he to his wife and she to nothing. But they still love each other, although she more than he.

The idea of a woman sacrificing herself for a man, unworthy though he be -- as all men are -- in a "He'll be sorry when I'm dead!" mood, is certainly not unique to Japanese cinema, although Western culture tends to tack on a "Reader, I married him" happy ending. Even so, I often blink and tell myself "I give them six weeks." Either that, or it's MarySue fanfiction of the bleariest sort.

In short, this strikes me as what used to be called shopgirl fiction, piffle, and unworthy of Naruse, whose narratives of downtrodden women suffering in a misogynistic Japan speak of real problems, real anguish. Yes, he gave this movie his usual attention to detail. Yes, Hideko Takamine gives one of her sterling performances, and yes, Masayuki Mori gives a performance that, like many a Naruse film, smacks less of sympathy for the downtrodden than misandry. But piffle is piffle, and it's only by remembering that film is first and foremost commercial art, that this makes sense; it's a shopgirl movie from a novel by Fumiko Hayashi (1903-1951).

She was born the daughter of a poor peddler -- somehow "poor" is always attached to the noun, as if we think of guys who have to tramp hither and yon to sell their cheap wares, as eccentric millionaires. She tried to commit suicide on several occasions. By the end of the Second World War, she was Japan's top novelist; government-sponsored trips to China in which she reported that things were great kept her in the public eye. This was the fifth novel of hers that Naruse had made into a movie, and those are also highly regarded. I like the ones I've seen a lot, particularly MESHED.

This one, however, is shopgirl piffle, even though it is shopgirl piffle of the highest order.

Greatest movie of all time

[amanagrawal-46512 · 10/10 · 1 January 2024]

I have seen many retrospective classical and modern era films directed by Miyazaki, Takahata, shinkai,kon,oshii,ozu, Otomo, Hosoda, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, but none of the films has reach me at that deeper like these films. This film is the epitome of filmmaking or what is like to be get inside of deepest of human heart. Name any Hollywood or any other international movies that has made such deep impact like this film. Generally Japanese movie has profound respect for human condition, these film touches the soul, it's like gem among the gems. Please watch and feel to its truest essence if possible.

A solid drama

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 7/10 · 17 January 2023]

Another Mikio Naruse film, which means it's kind of long and very slow throughout... but also features great acting, plenty of technical skill behind the camera, and some quietly affecting emotional scenes.

Part of me wonders whether his films about regret, growing old, and feeling despondent will hit harder when I'm older and am more plagued with wasting time when I was younger; time I'll never get back. Time wasted on watching movies and then spewing out words than form messy opinions on them, for example.

If this app is still a thing in 20-30 years, maybe I'll revisit this and provide an update then lol.

Footprints in the sand

[tieman64 · 25 November 2013]

A 1955 classic by Mikio Naruse, "Floating Clouds" stars Masayuki Mori as Yukiko Koda, a young woman who drifts, seemingly aimlessly, across post-war Japan. As the US occupation begins, Yukiko reminisces about her past, and her relationship with a man called Kengo, now happily married and unavailable to her.

A journey into disappointment and disillusionment, "Floating Clouds" watches as Yukiko's life slowly disintegrates. So too does Kengo's; his wife and career are dying, as is the Japan he once knew.

Recalling early-Resnais, Naruse's narrative bleeds from past to present. A mood of uncertainty hangs heavy in the air, fragmented time, lives and Japanese infrastructure commingling.

8/10 – See Kobayashi's "The Human Condition" and Antonioni's "Beyond The Clouds".

Period piece stuck in the period

[rufasff · 18 March 2003]

This melodrama of postwar Japan seemed to resonate with the people I watched it with; many seem to have seen it when it came out and it really spoke to them; but alas it is really a turgid melodrama that can't sustain your interest. Well directed and acted; it none the less becomes a series of redundant bad break scenes for it's heroine. Worth seeing, but not one of the greats of Japanese film.