Nagareru (1956) Online

'Flowing' is a moving, beautifully made story centered around the demise of a long established geisha house, drowned under mounting debts. We witness the story largely through the eyes of the new maid Rika (Kinuyo Tenaka) as the elegant but unworldly mistress of the house Otsuta (Isuzu Yamata) tries to save her business. In this she is aided by her more worldly daughter Katsuyo (Hideko Takamine), but she is undermined by her hard-nosed older sister and an apparently sympathetic senior geisha guild member.

There is really nothing to this story - just an episode in the death of an older world, but its told with great sensitivity and not a little humour. There is a very funny scene where two drunken geisha joke about how little they have to do to make their money. But the overwhelming feeling is nostalgia and sadness as these women fight the dying of their business in a harsh world where women without husbands are thrown onto their own devices. It is also unusual in that it deals honestly and frankly with the aging process and the fear of poverty in old age.

The reputation of Naruse seems to be increasing all the time - he is surely in the top rank of directors. This is the first of his movies that I've seen, but I would definitely want to see more. Every scene is beautifully framed with lovely sets and wonderful, naturalistic acting. There is a rare sense of authenticity about this movie. It is worth seeing both as an example of a terrific movie (it is genuinely compelling and entertaining) and a fascinating insight into another world.

Strongly recommended both for film buffs who want to know more about this fine director, and for anyone interested in Japanese culture.

While watching this film, you could be reminded of Mizoguchi's "Street Of Shame" which mined the same territory, that being a geisha house in Tokyo at the time when the government of Japan was considering outlawing prostitution. The difference between the two films is that this film is less grim, though by no means a happy film. Set almost completely in the geisha house, it tells the story of the people in it. Not all are geishas, though. Hideko Takamine plays the daughter, and she wants to get a regular job. The house itself is in debt, with the threat always looming that the mother will have to sell. The actresses in this film are excellent, and they make the film so, so good. The aforementioned Ms. Takamine, Izuzu Yamada, Kinuyo Tanaka and especially the amazing Haruko Sugimura are just great portraying the characters in this film. It is not an especially happy life, but director Naruse shows brilliantly that these ladies know how to do one thing best: survive. A near great film, on a par with "Street Of Shame", but not so foreboding. Highly recommended.

This is a series of vaguely connected episodes set in and around a geisha house. Staff come and go. There are money transactions between everybody. Naruse knows this area to perfection and uses this knowledge and some tremendous actresses to portray both interesting day to day details and some of the major issues. Linked themes are the ending both of careers and of businesses in the context of a decline in the popularity of geishas and their traditional entertainment skills in post war Japan. Even less than in other Naruse films, there is little depiction of the geisha with clients and more about their 'off stage' lives.

As ever, Naruse's camera-work and editing is tremendous in capturing scenes and actions.

FLOWING / HOUSE OF GEISHA (NAGARERU). Viewed on Streaming. Script = seven (7) stars; subtitles = seven (7) stars; restoration = three (3) stars; sound = two (2) stars. Director Mikio Naruse's depiction of modern female economic power-roles every way equivalent (for better or worse) to those of males. Naruse packs his business sub-cultural tale with just about every post-war A-List actress out there, or so it would seem (plus one Neko). This is an actress's showcase film, and the Director ensures that his cast delivers the goods big time! Acting-not-action and drama-not-melodrama drives the photo-play. For a De Facto backdrop, the Director employs a "standard-issue" geisha house (GH) that serves as a home and place of business for related/unrelated multiple generations of women (plus day-time trainees). The narrative grows out of a compounded "insider view" of small, every-day issues/concerns related to the operation and decline of a once prestigious, traditional (providing asexual male-client entertainment and good listening) GH in the midst of cultural change (the growing popularity of illegal prostitution--just about anything made illegal will increase demand!) and heightened economic competition (restaurant outsourcing to brothels, GH consolidation, etc.) not to mention a string of poor financial decisions made by its owner. Principal actresses lineup includes (but is not at all limited to): Natsuko Kahara as the mercenary older sister of the GH owner who holds the mortgage on the place and charges her sister interest; Chieko Nakakita who is the owner's younger sister, was abandoned by her husband, and has now moved back in with a small daughter (already undergoing geisha training); Haruko Sugimura as an almost-past-her-prime neighbor who is always around, always broke, always provides some humor, and supposed to be in charge of arranging bookings; Hideko Takamine playing a beautiful, but mysterious daughter of the GH owner, fully trained as a geisha, but wanting nothing more to do with the business; Kinuyo Tanaka who steals every scene she is in by playing a lower-class widowed housewife turned GH maid; and Isuzu Yamada as the almost-past-her-prime GH owner who has mortgaged her business to the hilt and is not above skimming the earnings of her geisha "sisters." (It is a tribute to such talented actresses--and, of course, Naruse--that the viewer can follow all that's going on without a score card!) Cinematography (narrow screen, gray & off-white--see below) seems okay, but some scenes are under-lit (even though all were shot on a sound stage). Restoration is very poor and troubling (if not down right insulting) for such an enduring film. (And this was streamed off the new FilmStruck/Criterion site no less!) The print is gray-fog city. Artifacts often appear where reels would seem to have been spliced together originally. Audio is mostly a disaster zone. Dialog readings sound like they were sent over an antique phone line! There is simply very little dynamic range resulting in voices coming across as harsh and unfriendly. Volume significantly varies from scene to scene. Age-based noise artifacts occur through the film. Subtitles are fine. So is the limited orchestral music (used mainly under the opening and closing credits). Highly recommended (especially if/when restored). WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.