Sound of the Mountain

This picture was adapted from a novel of the same name by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, serialized between 1949 and 1954. Mikio Naruse, one of the greats of Japanese cinema, made it into a film shortly after its last serialization. The story was an ideal one for the director, centered as it is the lives of ordinary people and reflecting the place of women in modern Japanese society. It is also infused with the bleakness that characterizes many of his works as it looks at marital strife, betrayal, and disintegration. Naruse is often compared with his contemporary, Yasujirô Ozu. Although Naruse's visual style has more fluidity than the austere formalism of Ozu, both tell stories of regular people that, in the directors' great works from the 1950s, reflect the disruptive social changes in post-war Japan. Sound of the Mountain uses many actors closely identified with Ozu, none more so than leading lady Setsuko Hara. As Dag Sodtholt wrote for SenseOfCinema.com in 2001, "If you have ever wondered what happened to the various Setsuko Hara characters from all those Ozu films after she was forced to trade her life as a daughter for a probably loveless marriage, Sound of the Mountain is the film for you." Indeed, Hara suffers greatly in her marriage to an abusive, adulterous boor, detesting her life with this horrendous man to such a degree she decides to abort their child, a daring plot line for its time. The one saving grace in her life is her warm relationship with her father-in-law. Considering she was one of Japan's most popular and highly respected actors of the postwar years (although her career started as a teen in the mid-1930s), it's no surprise Hara worked frequently with some of the country's greatest directors, making a total of six films with Ozu, five with Naruse, and four with Kurosawa. She appeared in at least one movie (usually several more) between 1935 and 1962 but claimed late in life that she never really enjoyed acting. After Ozu's death in 1963, much to the consternation of her many fans, she retired from acting, refusing all roles and living a quiet life for the next 40+ years until her death in 2015 at the age of 95. Sô Yamamura is another actor in this film who worked frequently with Ozu. He was one of the neglectful offspring in Tokyo Story (1953), here playing the family patriarch watching his children's marriages fall apart, a somewhat rare instance of a sympathetic male character in a Naruse film and the one whose point of view, unexpectedly, guides the film, rather than the long-suffering female at the story's center or any of the other women crucial to the narrative. This means some of the decisive actions of the story take place off camera. Likewise, Naruse keeps the relationship between Yamamura and daughter-in-law Hara ambiguous, hinting at a deeper, quasi-incestuous love between them and creating a powerful dynamic. Yamamura won a Mainichi Film Concours award for his work here. He is best known in the U.S. for his role as Admiral Yamamoto in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). Ken Uehara, playing Hara's husband from hell, was a Naruse favorite, appearing in nine of the director's movies. This was the fourth of seven times he played opposite Hara in his long career stretching from 1935 until shortly before his death in 1991 at the age of 82. Although it is considered among Naruse's best films and reportedly one of his favorites, Sound of the Mountain is far less known outside Japan than his most famous works, two of which were released within a year of this one: Late Chrysanthemums (1954) and Floating Clouds (1955). This period was one of the most fruitful for Japanese cinema, seeing the release of such classics as Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954); Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (1953), Sansho the Bailiff (1954), and Street of Shame (1956); the international hit Godzilla (1954); and Ozu's Tokyo Story and Early Spring (1956). Kawabata's novel was adapted by Yôko Mizuki, one of the most important and accomplished screenwriters of the country's cinema during this period and certainly at the top of the handful of female scripters in Japanese film history. This was the fourth of seven films she made with Naruse, bringing her distinctive sensibility to his portraits of modern women during a time of social upheaval. Director: Mikio Naruse Producer: Sanezumi Fujimoto Screenplay: Yôko Mizuki, from the novel by Yasunari Kawabata Cinematography: Masao Tamai Editing: Eiji Ooi Production Design: Satoru Chûko Music: Ichirô Saitô Cast: Setsuko Hara (Kikuko), Sô Yamamura (Shingo), Ken Uehara (Shuichi), Yôko Sugi (Hideko), Teruko Nagaoka (Yasuko) By Rob Nixon