Mikio Naruse - Floating Clouds (1955)

Mariko Okada in Floating Clouds (1955), Flowing (1956), Late Autumn (1960), and An Autumn Afternoon (1962).

Ukigumo aka Floating Clouds, 1955, Mikio Naruse

Hideko Takamine as Yukiko in Floating Clouds (浮雲, Ukigumo) dir. Mikio Naruse, 1955

Summertime (1955) dir. David Lean

Floating Clouds (1955) dir. Mikio Naruse

“Floating Clouds“ (1955) by Mikio Naruse

“On the 6th Day of the 2nd Month of the First Year of the Kampo era. Taking a moment of my free time, I wish to express my joy of the cat. It arrived by boat as a gift to the late Emperor, received from the hands of Minamoto no Kuwashi.

The color of the fur is peerless. None could find the words to describe it, although one said it was reminiscent of the deepest ink. It has an air about it, similar to Kanno. Its length is 5 sun, and its height is 6 sun. I affixed a bow about its neck, but it did not remain for long.

In rebellion, it narrows its eyes and extends its needles. It shows its back.

When it lies down, it curls in a circle like a coin. You cannot see its feet. It’s as if it were circular Bi disk. When it stands, its cry expresses profound loneliness, like a black dragon floating above the clouds.

By nature, it likes to stalk birds. It lowers its head and works its tail. It can extend its spine to raise its height by at least 2 sun. Its color allows it to disappear at night. I am convinced it is superior to all other cats.”

- journal entry of 22-year-old Emperor Uda on March 11, 889 CE and earliest record of a cat in Japan [x]

Black Cat (detail) by Hishida Shunso, 1910 [x]

Hideko Takamine in Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955) Cast: Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Mariko Okada, Isao Yamagata, Chieko Nakakita, Daisuke Kato. Screenplay: Yoko Mizuki, based on a novel by Fumiko Hayashi. Cinematography: Masao Tamai. Production design: Satoru Chuko. Film editing: Eiji Ooi. Music: Ichiro Saito. Mikio Naruse's Floating Clouds brings to mind some of Ernest Hemingway's stories about war-damaged lovers trying to make the best of a doomed relationship. Yukiko (Hideko Takamine) is a young woman returning to Tokyo after working in Japanese-occupied French Indochina as a secretary. There she had an affair with the bitter, cynical Kengo (Masayuki Mori), an employee of the Japanese forest service who is married to the sickly Kuniko (Chieko Nakakita). Trying to make it on her own in postwar Japan, Yukiko finds that her secretarial skills are in little demand because she doesn't know English, a necessity under the American occupation. Desperate, she picks up an American soldier and becomes his mistress. Meanwhile, she also seeks out Kengo, and finds him trying to make a go of it in the lumber business, still married to Kuniko but unwilling to divorce her and marry Yukiko. So over the course of the film, these two deeply wounded people meet and part repeatedly, not only lacerating themselves but also hurting others with words and deeds. At the end, they have seemingly found a way to live together, partly by retreating from the world onto a remote Japanese island, but even that rapprochement is ill-fated. Naruse's film is an absorbing downer, gaining much of its energy from our suspense about what the protagonists will do to each other next, as well as a showcase for Hideko Takamine's marvelous performance. There are those who think it a masterpiece. 

Mikio Naruse - Floating Clouds (1955)

Class of 2023 extended edition

Float Along ☁️

Ukigumo, 1955, Mikio Naruse

Illustrations by Steve R Dodd

SKYWARD VISIONS II

by Chris Becker