Earlier this month, it was announced that Japan Society and Metrograph had partnered on a 30-film retrospective of Japanese master Naruse Mikio, the first major survey of his work to screen in New York in 20 years. In 2008, when covering Film Forum’s “Naruse: The Japanese Unknown Master,” Slant’s Keith Uhlich wrote, “Of all the acknowledged masters of cinema, the Japanese director Mikio Naruse is perhaps the one least known in the West, as well as the one whose work is most difficult to see.” Much, luckily, has changed since then.
Indeed, many of Naruse’s films are more firmly entrenched in the canon today. For one, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs was released in 2007 on the Criterion Collection, and one of the label’s Eclipse releases, Silent Naruse, assembled five of his silent works (Flunky, Work Hard!, No Blood Relation, Apart from You, Every-Night Dreams, and Street Without End).
According to the press release for the two-part “Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us”: “Notable series highlights include all six of Naruse’s adaptations of celebrated feminist author Fumiko Hayashi’s work (Floating Clouds, Repast, Lightning, Wife, Late Chrysanthemums, A Wanderer’s Notebook), as well as some of Naruse’s rarest films, including the New York premieres of three pre-war gems not presented in previous retrospectives: Morning’s Tree-Lined Street, A Woman’s Sorrows, and Sincerity.
Opening on Friday, May 9th with Floating Clouds, Japan Society will present “Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us – Part I” through Sunday, May 31st, which culminates with Yearning. Then, “Part II” opens at Metrograph on Thursday, June 5th with When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, and closes on Sunday, June 29th with Naruse’s swan song Scattered Clouds.
Watch the trailer for the series below:
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