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The subject of parents struggling to make ends meet while raising a child was returned to often by Naruse in his silent period, but rarely did he cover the topic with as much gravitas as in Every-Night Dreams. The film’s patiently accumulating narrative begins with a portrait of the life of Omitsu (Kurishima Sumiko), a bar hostess at a seaside brothel who independently cares for her son, Fumio (Kojima Teruko), in the wake of her husband’s departure years prior. One day, Mizuhara (Saito Tatsuo) returns unexpectedly, begging to see their son and seeking penance for his cowardice. With a mix of reluctance and vulnerability, Omitsu lets Mizuhara back into her life, setting the stage for the possibility of a redemptive arc to triumph against the pervasive augurs of postwar depression, here depicted as a series of torn socks, ripped shoes and diminished job opportunities. But Naruse was allergic to such palliatives, and the downward spiral that ensues, emblazoned with a flurry of exclamatory tracking shots and point-of-view shifts, is among the bleakest in the director’s oeuvre. – Carson Lund

Directed by Naruse Mikio.
With Kurishima Sumiko, Kojima Teruko, Arai Jun.
Japan, 1933, 35mm, black & white, silent, 64 min.
Japanese intertitles 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