Masae Yoshikawa

Abekobe dōchū

Jiro Takimura, a painter, falls in love with Marie, a beautiful married woman who is studying painting abroad in France.

A story of the skilled brain surgeon, Todo, whose talent and ambition are put to test through a series of high risk surgical procedures.

Based on the novel by Toyoko Yamazaki.

1962 Japanese movie

A girl rebels against her mother, who runs a brothel in Yokohama, and attempts to find freedom on her own.

Based on the comic by Shosuke Kurakane. Shown in two parts.

1962 Japanese movie

Considered one of the finest late Naruses and a model of film biography, A Wanderer’s Notebook features remarkable performances by Hideko Takamine – Phillip Lopate calls it “probably her greatest performance” – and Kinuyo Tanaka as mother and daughter living from hand to mouth in Twenties Tokyo. Based on the life and career of Fumiko Hayashi, the novelist whose work Naruse adapted to the screen several times, A Wanderer’s Notebook traces her bitter struggle for literary recognition in the first half of the twentieth century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, often humiliating attempts to get published in a male-dominated culture.