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Sudden Rain (1956 film)
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Wikipedia article
is a 1956 Japanese comedy-drama film directed by Mikio Naruse. It is based on a play by Kunio Kishida.
Plot
The marriage of Fumiko and Rytar Namiki has gone stale, with both of them constantly arguing about what to do on a day off, or her cutting out cooking recipes from the newspaper before he finished reading it. Their animosities are witnessed by Fumiko's niece Ayako, who pays a visit to complain about her own husband's inattentiveness, and their new neighbours, the Imasatos. When Rytar's company announces the dismissal of some of their employees, a group of colleagues visits him at home and offers him to become their partner in a bar financed with their severance pay, with Fumiko serving the bar's guests. Rytar throws them out and has an argument with Fumiko, declaring that he does not want his wife to take up a job. The couple contemplates a divorce and Rytar's return to his hometown to work on his family's farm. The next morning, a children's balloon falls into their backyard, and Fumiko and Rytar become engaged in a defiant ball throwing game, watched by the neighbours.
Cast
* Setsuko Hara as Fumiko Namiki
* Shji Sano as Rytar Namiki
* Kyko Kagawa as Ayako
* Keiju Kobayashi as Mr. Imasato
* Akemi Negishi as Mrs. Imasato
* Chieko Nakakita as Mrs. Kurobayashi
* Daisuke Kat as Kawakami
Reception
Naruse biographer Catherine Russell called 'Sudden Rain' an "extraordinarily bleak film", which nonetheless "offers a poetic treatment of a dismal situation". Dan Sallitt saw the film's depiction of the marital conflict as "characteristically brutal and devastating" for Naruse, despite the "light-hearted formal play".
References
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