Yearning (Mikio Naruse, 1964) (Patreon)

I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality

"Uneven development" is a bit of a cliche in critical theory, but sometimes it can pinpoint very specific social pathologies. Yearning is a case in point. Like so many of Naruse's films, this one is about a family contending with the onslaught of modernity. They own a small mom-and-pop grocery that is being driven out of business by a corporate chain supermarket. (As is repeatedly emphasized, the supermarket sells eggs for 5 yen, while the small grocers must charge 11. The small profit margin for the neighborhood shops won't allow for bulk-buying or loss leader, so they are undercut every time.)

However even as post-World War II capitalism is wreaking havoc on these people's lives, they are still hamstrung by sexual and gender conventions from another era. The primary conflict of Yearning is that dissolute, directionless Koji (Yūzō Kayama), the surviving brother of the merchant family, is secretly in love with his sister-in-law Reiko (Hideko Takamine), the widow of his older brother. Reiko stayed on with the family to run the store after she lost her husband in the war, and so she remains in a liminal position with respect to the rest of the family. They appreciate her sacrifice and rely on her labor, but when an buyout offer comes in, the clan's two sisters Hisako (Mitsuko Kusabue) and Takako (Yumi Shirakawa) want to force Reiko out.

Compared to the subtlety of earlier Naruses, Yearning is sometimes awkwardly declarative. Its driving issues are fairly close to the surface, and at times the melodrama breaks rather than bends. (For instance, the sisters' smug self-justifications for giving Reiko the shaft are a bit too nakedly villainous.) On the other hand, of the films I've seen thus far, Yearning is the most pronounced with respect to showing how women get caught between tradition and change. Reiko can be sacrificed, despite her devoted service to the family, because she is not a blood relative. At the same time, she is socially forbidden from having a love affair with Koji. He is nine years younger than her, and she and Koji are ostensibly "family" -- a structure than provides no shelter, only isolation.

Then again, the fact that Koji, even in his most passionate declarations of love, insists on calling Reiko "sister" only underlines the transgression implied by their union (almost as if this is secretly part of the appeal). When Reiko must finally leave the family behind, Koji comes along, deliberately occupying a vague middleground between loving brother and would-be lover. Again, the unmooring of social structures in postwar Japan can only destroy; it continually fails to liberate. (Watching so much Naruse shows me exactly why Oshima was so pissed off!) As with the family store, that cannot hope to offer the choice or convenience of the supermarket, Koji and Reiko are not free to make any selection they please.