A Wanderer's Notebook

The film rests on the life of the novelist Fumiko Hayashi. Through the first half of the twentieth century she struggles to be recognised as a writer. To live she works as a peddler, as a waitress and behind a bar. The men around her give her no support, and the relationships come out the same way again and again. The effort to get published is long and often humiliating. The reason is plain enough: the literary world is in the hands of men. The film does not turn that struggle into a success story; it shows what it cost. The hundred and twenty four minutes are spread over many years. Hideko Takamine and Kinuyo Tanaka appear in Mikio Naruse’s Japanese film, completed in 1962.