The Izu Dancer

Kawashima is a high school student. He travels to the Izu peninsula for a holiday. On the road he comes across a group of travelling performers. The troupe puts on shows from town to town. Among them is a young dancer. The girl is called Kaoru. Kawashima is taken with her. He carries on along the road with them. The days pass walking and staying at inns. A quiet closeness grows between the two of them. But the distance between them is plain. At the end of the journey comes the parting. The account is set in the Taisho period. It comes from the story by Yasunari Kawabata, which was published in 1927. Momoe Yamaguchi and Tomokazu Miura take the leads in Katsumi Nishikawa’s Japanese film of 1974.