124 minutes
A haunting portrait of obsessive love in a ruined world, Floating Clouds is set amid the bombed-out landscapes of postwar Japan. When a woman returns from working in French Indochina with hopes of resuming her relationship with a married man, both of their lives descend into a self-destructive spiral of suffering and anger.
Film Notes by Johan Nordström
A compelling romantic melodrama, Ukigumo was acclaimed both by the director’s colleagues in the film industry (Yasujiro Ozu hailed it as a masterpiece) and by the Japanese critical establishment, who voted it into first place in that year’s Best Ten critics’ poll for Japan’s leading film magazine, Kinema Junpo. In Japan, it is still generally regarded as, in the words of Naruse scholar Masumi Tanaka, “the pinnacle of his creative achievement.” The film was one of six that Naruse adapted from writings by the distinguished female author Fumiko Hayashi (1903-1951), and one of 17 in which he directed the great actress Hideko Takamine (1924-2010), whose sensitive yet determined screen persona ideally personified his unhappy yet resourceful heroines. Ukigumo is a perfect synthesis of Hayashi’s literary sensitivity and Naruse’s visual restraint, with Takamine serving as the essential bridge between these two artistic visions. The genius of Naruse lies in his ability to capture the fleeting emotions that cross Takamine’s face––those momentary hesitations, flashes of hope quickly extinguished, and the quiet determination that marks her character’s journey through postwar disillusionment. The film’s drama has long been interpreted as a microcosm of Japan’s wartime and postwar experience. Naruse and Takamine transform what could be a simple story of unrequited love into a profound meditation on the displacement experienced by an entire generation who had lost not only a war but their place in a rapidly changing social order. In Takamine’s nuanced performance, we witness the disillusionment of postwar Japan not as abstract concept but as lived emotional reality.
Copy from Toho. Restored in 4K in 2025 by Toho, from the 35mm positive master.
Presented by Archives on Screen
Archives on Screen (AoS) brings rare, unseen archival films from around the globe to Minnesota. Co-founded in 2022 by Michelle Baroody and Maggie Hennefeld, AoS has worked with international film archives and local film venues to expose students, diverse audiences, and underserved populations to the richness of cinema history. We screen everything from silent films to contemporary features, focusing primarily on counter-cinemas, such as feminist and queer films, world cinema, and anti-colonial productions. Our events facilitate public education, community engagement, and open conversation about how the archives of film history can help us to imagine different worlds and alternative futures. Archives on Screen’s flagship program, Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour, is a curated selection of films from Il Cinema Ritrovato, an annual international film festival that exhibits new restorations and rediscovered films in Bologna, Italy every summer. We also host a quarterly screening series at the Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis and regular screenings at the Heights Theater and other local venues. Learn more about Archives on Screen at archivesonscreen.org
Relased 1955
Directed by Mikio Naruse