TIFF Spotlight Japan Review: Mother (1952)
Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Kyôko Kagawa, Eiji Okada
Director: Mikio Naruse
Country: Japan
Genre: Drama
Editor’s Notes: This review of Mother is a part of TIFF’s Spotlight Japan series, which ran from January 19th to April 6th at TIFF Bell Lightbox. For more information, visit TIFF.net. If you’ve already seen the film we’d love to hear your thoughts on it; please tell us in the comments section below or in our new Next Projection Forums.
Mikio Naruse’s Mother (1952) is a harrowing tale, simply told from the viewpoint of a teenaged girl, about a woman who has to overcome the death of her only son and her husband to ensure a good life for her remaining children (and that of her nephew). The story is relayed partly by voiceover by the eldest daughter, Toshiko (Kyoko Kagawa) and mostly by the story unfolding naturally. The mother of the title is Masako (Kinuyo Tanaka) using a short-handled broom to sweep the floor because, as we are told by Toshiko, the short brooms don’t hurt her back. She is caring for her only son and eldest child, Susumu (Akihiko Katayama) who is ill from the air in the upholstery shop he worked in while her husband Ryousuke (Massao Mishima) is looking to restart his laundry business that he had to close years prior. There are two other children in the house, Chako (Keiko Enonami) who is the youngest daughter and Tetsuo (Takashi Ito) who is the nephew of Masako. His father was killed in the war and his mother Noriko (Chieko Nakakito) is absent due to career training and she is unable to provide for Tetsuo at the moment, so Masako and Ryousuke take him in.
Mikio Naruse’s Mother (1952) is a harrowing tale, simply told from the viewpoint of a teenaged girl, about a woman who has to overcome the death of her only son and her husband to ensure a good life for her remaining children…
The film then jumps to Susumu escaping from a sanitarium, where he was placed due to his illness. Not long after returning, he dies giving the family their first of several subsequent tragedies. The laundry opens and Ryousuke enlists an old friend and former assistant Kimura, known to the girls as Uncle POW (Daisuke Kato) because of his time spent in a Russian internment camp. The laundry booms thanks to Ryousuke’s extraordinary work ethic. So extraordinary is his work ethic he works himself into exhaustion and eventually succumbs to illness himself. He refuses to go to the hospital and does not recover from his illness.
This leaves Masako to run the laundry, still with assistance from Uncle POW, and raise the children with the meager earnings from the laundry. Clothing is sold for food, and even a relative, Ryousuke’s brother and his wife, offer to adopt Chako to help ease the burden and their suffering since they lost their son in the war. Chako refuses at first, but over time does go with her uncle.
The end of the film is much happier than the circumstances that lead to it, but there is one shot of Masako near the end that tells us all we need to know about her. She is briefly alone near the entry of the shop/house and she pauses at the counter, hands folded leaning on the counter. We see the pain and sadness of all the events in her life, but she also conveys a muted joy. She knows things are working out, but she is thinking of what she has lost to regain equilibrium.
That is the power of Kinuyo Tanaka. She uses all of herself to portray a woman who is strong because she needs to be, but does not particularly want to be. She scolds Chako for being selfish when she does not want to be adopted and leave her sister and mother, all the while knowing she does not want her daughter to leave home at such a young age simply because she is another mouth to feed. You can see the guilt and pain in her face while her words are encouraging the arrangement. Tanaka does not just play the mother; she is the mother to these children. She is always soft spoken and never outwardly complains about the circumstances but sometimes, when she thinks she is alone, she cries. Tanaka does not just give us a strong woman that lets adversity roll off her shoulders while she bravely does what is necessary without any emotional impact, she gives us a human who is only strong because she has to be and secretly would rather not be. She is the emotional center to the film and anchors it so brilliantly that each new trial, tribulation, sacrifice she endures and each favor she does for others to make their lives easier and hers harder pains us. She wants what is best for her children and nothing more, but wouldn’t mind being happy again herself one day.
Naruse lets Tanaka free by using a very subdued camera style and long takes. He seems to have taken a page or several from the directorial handbook of Yasijru Ozu.
Naruse lets Tanaka free by using a very subdued camera style and long takes. He seems to have taken a page or several from the directorial handbook of Yasijru Ozu. Naruse does not do anything to detract from the circumstances on screen and makes no attempt to heighten the tragedy with close-ups or trick lighting or manipulative music cues. He lets his actors do the work and in so doing he has created a magnificent work that is touching and despite the hardships the family endures, humorous. The occasional battles between Chako and Tetsuo are very funny, as are the baker’s apprentice Shinjiro’s (Eiji Okada) awkward courtship of Toshiko. In fact, Shinjiro provides most of the film’s comic relief, especially when Toshiko is being used by Noriko as a beauty model and is dressed in full wedding attire and hair. Shinjiro sees her and thinks she is getting married, rushes home and laments to his parents. His mother then comes by to congratulate the family when the misunderstanding is explained.
In Mother (1952), Naruse gives us a look inside post-war Japan the likes of which are rare. He shows us the normal, working people and the effect that life has on them. There are no soldiers recounting their troubles in the war or after it, and the war is mentioned but not labored over. There are only one or two conversations directly about the war and they are remembered as if it was long ago. They live their lives the best they can and continue on. Mother is an exemplary example of what a parent will do for their children under good and bad circumstances. Masako is a brilliant character because of her reserved dignity and resolve, and also because of her humanity. It is the humanity that Naruse brings out in the film that makes it glow brighter than just another survivor story. He has imbued the film with real people who act with kindness and some rudeness. He lets us know that there are people willing to help in troubled times and that adversity does not breed only darkness but also brings out the best in people. The adversity in the film is naturally occurring as in life, not artificially imposed to create drama. Naruse creates a film that illustrates the ups and downs of life and shows them faced by people who are strong because they have to be and if given the opportunity, would relinquish that strength in return for stability. Mother is a beautifully rendered film that lets us experience the emotions of the characters first hand and we are better for the experience.
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