From "Women's Ways," Mikio Naruse's contribution to the omnibus film The Kiss (1955), which consists almost entirely of scenes where Hideko Takamine, our favorite sad-eyed gal, looks at something or someone; cinematography by Kazuo Yamasaki. Suggested alternate title: "Sonata for Reaction Shot."
Miserable Mikio turns something like a Lubitsch comedy plot—a woman married to a doctor discovers that his young live-in assistant has a crush on him after stumbling upon her diary, and decides to solve the problem by finding the girl a suitor—into a funny mini-tragedy, playing the final punchline for equal parts irony and heartbroken resignation.
Almost all of the action transpires across Takamine's face. When she meets her brother at a cafe where a tinny proto-Muzak version of "The Blue Danube Waltz" gently farts in the background, and tells him that despite the situation, she "trusts her man," he responds: "That's not what your face is telling me.
Miserable Mikio turns something like a Lubitsch comedy plot—a woman married to a doctor discovers that his young live-in assistant has a crush on him after stumbling upon her diary, and decides to solve the problem by finding the girl a suitor—into a funny mini-tragedy, playing the final punchline for equal parts irony and heartbroken resignation.
Almost all of the action transpires across Takamine's face. When she meets her brother at a cafe where a tinny proto-Muzak version of "The Blue Danube Waltz" gently farts in the background, and tells him that despite the situation, she "trusts her man," he responds: "That's not what your face is telling me.
- 10/27/2010
- MUBI
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