Kabei: Our Mother

Tokyo, 1940. The Nogami family lives an ordinary life. The father, Shigeru, is a scholar of German literature. One day he is arrested as a communist and never comes home. His wife Kayo is left with two daughters. Keeping the household, writing the letters, raising the girls all fall to her. Shigeru's sister Hisako and his former student Yamazaki are there beside her. The war grows, food runs short, people keep their distance. Kayo does not complain once, and it is exactly that which shows what she has lost. Yoji Yamada directs the Japanese film; two hours and thirteen minutes, with Sayuri Yoshinaga as Kayo and Tadanobu Asano in the cast. It is adapted from the book Teruyo Nogami wrote about her own family. Nogami spent years working alongside Akira Kurosawa in film.