Sound of the Mountain (Mikio Naruse, 1954) (Patreon)

BY REQUEST: Matthew McGee

I'm not sure how I managed to miss Sound of the Mountain back when I was doing my deep dive into Naruse. Of course, the man has dozens of extant films, and it'll take years to work through them all. But this one feels major. For one thing, it's the film of Naruse's I've seen that seems to be most clearly in dialogue with his peers. Although Sound's cutting is far more conventional and fluid than what we'd see from Ozu, the film does take great care in depicting postwar domestic architecture -- the home, but also the office and the burgeoning suburbs -- as a direct expression of confinement. And in her socially enforced feminine forbearance, Setsuko Hara's character, wife Kikuko, is as tragic as any Mizoguchi heroine.

The difference is that Naruse is more interested in the psychological toll of Japan's rapid transition into modernity, rather than metaphorizing it or applying it as a structural logic. While his films have featured their share of morally compromised figures, Naruse offers up a truly irredeemable cad with Kikuko's salaryman husband Shuichi (Ken Uehara), whose sexist prerogative is matched only by the strange lack of joy he receives from exercising it. He can barely be bothered to conceal his contempt for Kikuko, and he's pretty blatant about the fact he's having an affair. But he conducts himself like a grim cipher, a douchebag on autopilot.

The primary relationship in Sound of the Mountain isn't between husband and wife, however. The couple live with Shuichi's parents, and Kikuko has great fondness for her father-in-law Shingo (Sō Yamamura), who comments on the woman's kindness and solicitousness toward him and his wife (Yatsuko Tan'ami). These actors also played the parents in Ozu's Tokyo Story the previous year, and this continuity produces unexpected resonance. Kikuko behaves like a daughter rather than a daughter-in-law, and Shingo resents Shuichi's callous treatment of her. Where the daughter-in-law of Tokyo Story, also played by Setsuko Hara, is regarded as tragically heroic, offering the care that the couple's blood relatives can't be bothered with, Sound of the Mountain suggests a lurking Freudianism, with Shingo's attentions existing just inside the bounds of propriety.

But more significantly, Hara's character in the Ozu film was a war widow, whereas Naruse casts her as someone bound by female duty to a humiliating situation. Her husband frequently criticizes her as being "like a child," whereas his girlfriend -- herself a war widow -- is more obviously sexual. Naruse depicts a moment of uneven cultural development, wherein modern Japanese men have been freed of their patriarchal responsibilities while women remain confined by convention. (The fact that Shuichi and his father both work at the same company makes this generational shift all the more evident. The younger man stays out drinking and catting around under the pretext of entertaining clients.)

The subplot of Sound of the Mountain serves to demonstrate the double standard still governing heterosexual relationships in postwar Japan. Shiuchi's sister Fusako (Chieko Nakakita) is having problems with her husband, and temporarily moves back in with her parents along with her two children. Where her mother is sympathetic to her troubles, Shingo is distant towards her, and even a bit dismissive. He chides her for her part in failing to make her marriage work, even though the son-in-law is ignoring his family to focus on his illegal smuggling scheme. Fusako upbraids her father for "making me marry him," implying that her parents forced her hand after she became pregnant.

But eventually, Shingo has to reconcile his tenderness toward Kikuko with his own sexist worldview. It's in the final third or Sound of the Mountain that Naruse makes his boldest moves, articulating a vision for a more radical, egalitarian Japanese culture than Ozu or Mizoguchi could imagine. In light of the current backlash against women's rights in the U.S., these gestures are that much more startling. As Shingo attempts to set Kikuko's situation right, he finds that chivalry and paternalism are inadequate responses to his son's cruelty. First, he tracks down his son's lover Kinuko (Reiko Sumi) to ask her to leave his son alone. In doing so, he learns just how cruel Shuichi really is.

Not only does Kinuko refuse to accept shame; she challenges Shingo's prerogative. Why does he think it's appropriate to treat her like the homewrecker when it's Shuichi, the young man he raised, who is doing the cheating. On top of that, Kinuko informs him that she and his son are already finished because, upon learning that she is pregnant, he beat her and pushed her down in an attempt to kill the baby. Horrified, Shingo apologizes and offers her money, and she scorns him for his transactional response to her predicament, asking him "would you like an invoice?"

Back at home, Shingo discovers the extent of Kikuko's unhappiness and desperation. She goes into Tokyo to a hospital appointment, and he worries that she may be ill. Eventually, she confesses that she was pregnant with Shuichi's child but had an abortion. Despite the crushing demand that she produce a grandchild, she takes control of her own body and situation, refusing to bring a child into her failing relationship. Her in-laws are stunned at the news, but instead of being angry at Kikuko, they sympathize, and Shingo finally understands that Shuichi will never be a suitable husband. In other words, everything really is his fault, and Kikuko's response, though tragic, was completely understandable.

Sound of the Mountain's final scene parallels the emotional climax of Tokyo Story, but with a major difference. Whereas in Ozu's film, the father rewards his daughter-in-law with freedom from obligation, as a kind of reward for he selflessness, here Shingo tells Kikuko goodbye, recognizing that she took action to secure her own freedom. He acknowledges that her marriage to Shuichi cannot be saved and that she should divorce him and begin again. This farewell scene exhibits a tenderness one might expect between a married couple discussing an amicable but necessary split. At the same time, this romantic undercurrent is tinged with a gentler, renewed paternalism as Shingo affords Kikuko the understanding he'd always withheld from his own daughter. At its conclusion, Sound of the Mountain reveals itself to have been a stealth melodrama. Shingo's affection for the selfless Kikuko becomes a deeper respect, and this gentleman of the previous generation gains an insight that his own son may never achieve.