Lightning

Kiyoko works as a bus conductor. Her family is large and disordered: her mother bore four children by four different men, her sisters are married and unhappy, her brother is useless. Everyone wants something from her, most of all that she marry. Her sisters' husbands look at her, her mother proposes a man of her own choosing, and the family lives off her wages. One day she leaves the house and rents a room alone. Mikio Naruse directs. Hideko Takamine plays Kiyoko. The source is Fumiko Hayashi's novel. The pairing of Naruse and Hayashi is one of the known matches in Japanese cinema; he made several films from her writing and in all of them described working women. The subject is family ties as a burden. The film does not make the family villains; everyone acts out of their own helplessness, and precisely for that reason nobody lets go. Kiyoko's decision to live alone is out of the ordinary for its period, and the film does not present it as a victory either; the woman is alone, and that is also hard. Hideko Takamine appeared in most of Naruse's films and her performance here is measured, almost without reaction. Daily life in postwar Tokyo is given in detail: rents, jobs, neighbourhood relations and money. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Japanese cinema and quiet drama centred on a woman. Who it is not for: little happens, the pace is slow, and the narrative offers no resolution.