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The last of Naruse Mikio's six Hayashi Fumiko adaptations, A Wanderer's Notebook takes as its subject the author herself, as portrayed by Takamine Hideko in a spritely performance full of surprises. Rejecting her destiny as the daughter of poor merchants, Fumiko endures terrible jobs and lovers as she charges towards her dream of becoming a writer. Naruse foregrounds Fumiko's prose by placing her at a distance as voiceover narration and onscreen text transmute her dreary room into meditations on mortality, money and love. The many grumblings about whether her frank writing about poverty languishes too much in dreary details may have struck a chord with Naruse, who faced similar criticisms for his tearful vision of lower-middle-class life. – Kelley Dong

Directed by Naruse Mikio.
With Takamine Hideko, Takarada Akira, Kato Daisuke.
Japan, 1962, 35mm, black & white, 123 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.

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