Poster for the Japanese version of the movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967).
"Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967), the last work of Akio Naruse (1905-1969), is well known in Japanese film and critic circles alike about a young widow who, forced by environmental influences, to move to Hokkaido to work as a maid in a tavern run by a relative's family. A total of 4 films by Kio Naruse have been selected as one of the 100 best films in Japan in the 100 years, and this film is also one of them. The film won the fourth place in the 1967 Film Magazine Top Ten Awards.
In his last video, Naruse stages the last tragedy of life and love: love ends where it begins. The "chaotic cloud" style of love suddenly came, and the cut was still chaotic. Naruse's control of the film's inner rhythm and rhythm has always been praised. The neat arrangement of the form and plot of "Chaotic Clouds" gives the film a symmetrical rhythm in the internal narrative, bringing people a strong impact of beauty. The rhyme of love passages reflects a symmetrical beauty and feminine romance.
Stills from the movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967), With Leaf Si (right) and Yuzo Kayama (left)
The film is about Miko (Played by Leaf Si), who is dreaming of a bright future, when she is pregnant, and will be transferred to the U.S. Embassy with her husband, Hiroshi Eda (played by Yoshio Tsuchiya), who works for the Ministry of International Trade, Trade and Industry. But a sudden disaster destroyed all this, and Hiroshi Eda accidentally died in a car accident, and the court ruled that the accident was caused by force majeure and exempted him from responsibility. Yumiko has a deep hatred for the perpetrator Shiro Mishima (Yuzo Kayama), and she refuses Shiro Mishima's request for worship and compensation, takes the child away, and returns to her hometown of Aomori to work in her sister's hotel to earn a living.
Stills from the movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967), Si Yezi is devastated
Shiro Mishima was transferred out of the Tokyo headquarters due to a car accident, and his girlfriend of many years abandoned him. Feeling guilty, he regularly sends pensions to Yumiko. Soon the two met in Aomori, one unwilling to look back on the past, the other hoping to ask the other for forgiveness. Two traumatized people slowly come together...
Director Naruse Mikio has a strong world-weary ideology, and his artistic outlook is also greatly influenced by his outlook on life, and the relationship between men and women and the relationship between husband and wife in the films he directs often ends in tragedy, and "Chaotic Clouds" is no exception. However, the heroine of the film has great personality characteristics, never relies on male life, the inner world is very rich, and the actor's performance is also very accurate and delicate.
Stills from the movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967).
The story of screenwriter Nobuo Yamada (1932-1998) is general in itself, like an ordinary TV drama theme, but because it is very meticulous and lyrical, it is still very watchable. This film is still the only direct expression of male and female passion in the work of Naruse Mikio, so that Yuzo Kayama clearly says "I like you", in the twilight rain the two hold an umbrella together, and the two hug and kiss each other in the hotel room in the sunset.
The film is very calm and gentle to show the life style of japanese people in the 1960s, and the beauty lies in "how people fall in love with their enemies" to revisit the relationship between men and women. The story is simple, but the emotions of the characters are very delicate, and it is a good grasp of the emotional development process of the heroine Yumiko - she went from a young woman who lost her husband to a young woman who later came into contact with the man who caused her husband's death and cared for each other and even loved each other, although in the end Yumiko returned to a lonely life due to Mishima Shiro's external transfer work leaving Japan.
The movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967) Taiwanese DVD edition cover
In the film, love is a complete love tragedy of Naruse Miki's love: a fortuitous emergency breaks up the two happy marriages; two helpless wrongdoers are matched by Naruse. However, the short-lived consolation is fleeting, the short-lived optimism comes and goes, and an indelible memory is destined for men and women to part ways bitterly. Love ends where they begin.
The "chaotic cloud" style of love suddenly came, and the cut was still chaotic. Naruse has high hopes for love and regards it as an ideal—the corresponding love of the heart is the magic solution to grief. But Naruse is not willful about love, yearning rather than blind. Love will not change the real life of the whole family in the end, Naruse Will not be unrealistic for love, and his attitude towards love is positive and rational. For those unreserved regrets of love, he praised, praised, and knew how to hold back.
On location in the movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967), the crew is filming a scene in which male lead actor Yuzo Kayama boards a long-distance bus
Naruse's control of the film's inner rhythm and rhythm has always been praised. Compared with "Floating Clouds/Floating Clouds" (1955), which echoes love and national conditions just right and overlaps with each other, "Chaotic Clouds" does not have its ingenuity and good intentions, but its neat arrangement in form and plot is equally conducive to the flow of emotions; although there is no Mizoguchi Kenji (1898-1956) on the picture of the aesthetic brilliance, but he gives the film the symmetrical rhythm of the inner narrative, which also brings people a strong impact on beauty.
The rhyme of love passages reflects a symmetrical beauty and feminine romance. Yumiko and Mishima Shiro, Yumiko and her ex-husband, the same encounter in the hometown, the same in the countryside, the same missed the bus, the same is about to leave Japan. Even Yumiko's happiness, which is about to arrive twice, has been buried in two traffic accidents.
Stills from the movie "Chaos Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967), Inoki Leaves leaves Tokyo
For Yumiko, the two men have a sense of reincarnation in past lives and this life. The delicate birth process of yumiko's love affair with Shiro Mishima is also reflected in the details of their symmetrical interaction: the drunken Yumiko vents to Shiro Mishima, which aggravates Shiro Mishima's guilt; and the inner outpouring of Shiro Mishima, who is also drunk, captures Yumiko's heart. When the two first gathered at Aomori's small café, the waiter there did not serve Yumiko well, and when the two met again, the person who was treated rudely was replaced by Shiro Mishima.
In "Clouds of Chaos", although the application of Naruse's application of contingencies is frequent and unrestrained, it is subject to the premise of reality. Compared to Yasujiro Ozu's (1903-1963) theory that "movies are dramas, not accidental events", it is like that Naruse Yoshio would say, "Movies are life, not dramas." ”
The movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967) American Standard Collection The Criterion Collection DVD Edition Cover
The two car accidents that run through the soul of the film in the opening and ending, if according to the symmetrical rhythm of the whole film, if they are replaced by a mediocre director, or in order to create a more sensational and exciting effect, they will probably be changed to a pure drama, symmetrical with the opening, and more dramatic appeal - so that Shiro Mishima also died in the car accident.
This is the charm of Naruse Mikio, and dramatic conflicts or sudden events are only the conditions that trigger him to face the bleak life. In fact, if Shiro Mishima really died in a car accident, it can leave people with a regretful beauty. Yumiko and Shiro Mishima, who are alive but unable to pierce the love barrier, are even more sad and helpless. It can be said that Naruse gave up the ideal ending.
Stills from the movie "Chaos Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967), Si Yezi (left) and Yuzo Kayama (right)
What exactly makes a person in love necessarily separate? The film also provides us with countless answers and situations, such as differences in status, age disparities, sexual incompatibilities, family blocking, separation of heaven and man, and so on. In "Chaotic Clouds", there is no external objective condition to exert pressure on the male and female protagonists, and what lies between them is only respect for the deceased.
With his conscience and sincerity, Shiro Mishima was redeemed and won love, but in the end he lost to the shadow in Yumiko's heart, an obstacle they could not cross. Shiro Mishima and Yumiko actually have the virtue of self-restraint and restraint, so although they are "affectionate", they can only "stop at etiquette", and a beautiful relationship is doomed to end without a problem.
But there are also directors who are very reluctant to see such sad stories, such as Ang Lee. Because of his open-mindedness and tolerance towards love, all obstacles and barriers in the lover's world are destroyed and decayed into invisibility, and all impossibilities become logical. Transnational love ("Pushing Hand"), homosexuality ("Wedding Feast"), and Yearless Love ("Eating Men and Women"), no matter how much they challenge the world and taboos, can gain understanding and respect and harvest happiness.
Naruse's film is a typical combination of fiction and reality. Its fiction is reflected in the fiction of the contour composition of the story: such as the traffic accident as a fuse, the fateful marriage between Yumiko and Shiro Mishima, etc.; and its reality is the truth of the protagonist's face of cruel emergencies.
Its choice of virtual reality is undoubtedly contrary to Hollywood's traditional virtual reality setting of "real on the contour and fiction in the details". Although his sudden "falsehood" was vigorously opposed by Yasujiro Ozu, his "reality" was openly reaching an unprecedented height (unmatched by Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi). The reality of the details of life is reflected in the truth of the character's personality and behavior.
Naruse's portrayal of women in the wood has always been well known, and this film has reached the level of pure fire. Yumiko's unusual love affair with Shiro Mishima is both beautiful and authentic. Yumiko's love for Shiro Mishima vividly demonstrates the difference between hatred and love, while Shiro Mishima's love for Yumiko is the embodiment of the difference between pity and love.
The movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967) Hong Kong DVD edition cover
When Yumiko first bumps into Shiro Mishima at her ex-husband's spiritual hall, her pupils are filled with hatred for the man who stole her happiness. Hatred made Shiro Mishima stay in her heart forever, and Shiro Mishima left her with an indelible memory. However, it is this excessive concern that foreshadows the possibility of love. Because of her unforgettable hatred, she also "treated him specially" and withdrew the defense line of love for him (on the contrary, it was repulsive to the pursuit of others).
Then when she discovered his essential goodness, his straightness, his coincidence with her ex-husband, her heart throbbed because of him. So when he fell ill in front of her eyes, the motherly woman overcame the world, and even more defeated herself. And Shiro Mishima, whose love for Yumiko is transformed by guilt. The condemnation of the soul allows him to initially compensate for Yumiko's happiness, and his concern for her eventually crosses the line into a repayment of her love.
In 1967, Naruse made the most highly regarded work of the late period, "Clouds of Chaos," his last film. My colleague's long-time staff had a premonition that it might become his legacy: Yoshio Naruse, who entered the 1960s, was in poor health, and the number of films filmed declined rapidly compared with the 1950s.
When filming "Clouds", his condition deteriorated and his body was very weak, but he had to experience such subtleties as shooting pedestrians on the street, revealing his attachment to the film and the final solemnity. At the end of "Chaotic Clouds", the heroine's sad stop at the seaside is the last picture left for us by Naruse, and it is also the epitome of all the women in his works, sad and strong, proudly waiting for another baptism of wind and waves, waiting to be destroyed, and then reborn.
Stills from the movie "Chaotic Clouds/Chaos Clouds" (1967), Yuzo Kayama
"Chaotic Clouds" is the masterpiece of Naruse Mikio, the film is very plain, but the delicate performance of the male and female protagonists is very eye-catching, and the impossible love almost blossoms, but it finally ends in the contemplation of the past, which is lamentable, but if the two come together in form, is it only a temporary mutual relief or even deception? Naruse once again expresses his concern for the emotions of people in reality, and such a film needs to be carefully tasted in the evening.
Naruse is calm all his life, and his works are almost all about the love between men and women, but there is never a hero and heroine cuddling and kissing, and the protagonist always keeps a certain distance before reaching the peak. Only the color film "Chaotic Clouds" breaks this entrenched stereotype, and the passion of the hero and heroine boldly explodes after breaking through the taboo, but still separates before reaching the climax. Naruse's body gradually deteriorated during the filming of "Clouds of Chaos", and two years after the completion of the film, on July 2, 1969, Naruse's life reached its end.
The Shadow of the War and the Disturbed Clouds (1967 Japanese DVD Version Of The Seal)