Meshi [Repast] (Japan 1951)
Meshi [Repast] (Japan 1951)
Director: Mikio Naruse
Writers: Toshirō Ide, Sumie Tanaka, based on unfinished novel by Fumiko Hayashi
Scenario Supervisor: Yasunari Kawabata
Producer: Sanezumi Fujimoto
Cinematographer: Masao Tamai
Art director: Satoshi Chūko
Music: Fumio Hayasaka
Cast: Ken Uehara, Setsuko Hara, Yukiko Shimazaki, Yōko Sugi, Akiko Kazami, Haruko Sugimura, Ranko Hanai
Production company: Toho, Tokyo
Sound, b/w, 97 min.
Japanese language, electronic English subtitles
Print source: National Film Archive of Japan, Tokyo
Mikio Naruse’s Repast and Yasujiro Ozu’s Early Summer swept Japan’s film competitions in 1951, splitting awards for best film, director, actress, and supporting actress. Although Naruse is less familiar outside Japan, he is also highly regarded as a major director of contemporary drama films. Both directors worked at Shochiku until Naruse moved to P.C.L. in 1934, and they were sometimes compared—unfairly. Naruse favored “women’s films” about widows and single working women on society’s margins, or housewives and mothers in constrained circumstances. Repast features women in all these roles. It was his first major success since Wife! Be Like a Rose (1935) and a financial boon for Toho.
Setsuko Hara’s portrayals of women navigating changing times and pivotal life choices is one link in the shared success of Repast and Early Summer. If you have seen Early Summer (it screened at the Nitrate Picture Show in 2017), you might find a resemblance between Hara’s characters in the two films: a young working woman who rejects her family’s chosen match in favor of a widower with a child in Early Summer, and in Repast, the weary but willful Michiyo, who also defied family to marry Hatsunosuke, a low-level salaryman, for love). Naruse attributed the film’s success to Hara’s nuanced performance, andNaruse’s style—minimal dialogue, fluid editing, closely framed shots, sudden cutaways, and narratage—also contribute to Michiyo’s psychological characterization.
Critics noted Naruse’s mise-en-scène and use of space. Naruse scouted locations for ideas but disliked location shooting. The Osaka neighborhood is an open-air set constructed on an empty lot at Toho’s Tokyo studio. The home’s interior was designed to emphasize the territorial nature of the spaces Michiyo and Hatsunosuke typically inhabit. The kitchen floor was lowered, exaggerating the small, dark space as both Michiyo’s refuge and a constraint. The enhanced three-dimensionality of Hatsunosuke’s domain, the dining area, highlights his relative mobility. City bus tours had become a popular pastime, so the Osaka excursion provides contemporaneity and a moment to reflect on Japan’s recovery. (Ozu included a similar scene in Tokyo Story in 1953.)
This print was struck from the original negative in 1952. Its shrinkage of 1.4% is the highest we’ve dealt with at the Nitrate Picture Show, but otherwise the print is in excellent condition, with very few splices and scratches. —Joanne Bernardi