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With its violence largely offscreen, Naruse’s noir patiently and coolly constructs an unnerving labyrinth in which none of the characters are what they seem. Absorbing the news of his friend’s wife’s accident, Isao—an unassuming husband and father played with precise understatement by Kobayashi Keiju—responds with a taciturn stoicism that grows increasingly unsettling as details of the tragedy are uncovered, gradually transforming Isao, his wife and his friend—not to mention the film’s audience. Victims, perpetrators, accomplices and bystanders switch perspectives and roles as meaning becomes malleable according to each person’s changing psychological needs. While the men come into focus, it is the unknowable women of the title who determine the course of this ever-shifting narrative, even from beyond the grave, and do so with unexpected perversion.
– Brittany Gravely

Directed by Naruse Mikio.
With Kobayashi Keiju, Aratama Michiyo, Kusabue Mitsuko.
Japan, 1966, 35mm, black & white, 102 min. Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: National Film Archive of Japan

Harvard Film Archive Floating Clouds... The Cinema of Naruse Mikio film series co-presented by the Japan Foundation and co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute