Details and tickets purchase information: 
https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/sound-of-the-mountain-2025-07
Harvard students admitted free to regularly priced shows.

Directed by Naruse Mikio.
With Hara Setsuko, Yamamura So, Uehara Ken
Japan, 1954, 35mm, b/w, 95 min.
Japanese with English subtitles

Uncharacteristic in Naruse’s oeuvre for its focus on a sympathetic aging patriarch, Sound of the Mountain nonetheless reveals itself gradually as a film about the women in his orbit. Shingo (Yamamura So) is a businessman who lives under one roof with his incorrigible son Shuichi (Uehara Ken), his estranged daughter Fusako (Nakakita Chieko), his loveless companion Yasuko (Nagaoka Teruko), and the only person in the bunch with whom he shares any connection: Shuichi’s neglected wife, Kikuko (Setsuko Hara). A consummate observer of human behavior, Shingo catches on to the unspoken toll of his son’s harsh and neglectful treatment of Kikuko, and responds accordingly with kindness, attention and eventually his own detective work. The dramatic machinations of the filmstay largely within the confines of the family home and Shingo’s office, where he gently pries for intel from his younger employees, but Shingo’s search crescendos with a pilgrimage to Shuichi’s mistress’ home, at which point the latent tensions of the narrative click into place. The coda, staged in an expansive public park that ironically contrasts Shingo and Kikuko’s shrinking horizons, is one of Naruse’s great finales. – Carson Lund

Additional screening:
July 18 (Friday), 8:45 pm 

Harvard Film Archive special film series FLOATING CLOUDS… THE CINEMA OF NARUSE MIKIO co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute