is a 1963 Japanese

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by Susumu Hani. It was entered into the

14th Berlin International Film Festival The 14th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 26 June to 7 July 1964. The Swedish film ''491'' by Vilgot Sjöman was rejected by festival director ''Alfred Bauer'' owing to its controversial nature. The Golden Bear was awarded ...

where Sachiko Hidari won the

Silver Bear for Best Actress The Silver Bear for Best Actress (german: Silberner Bär/Beste Darstellerin) was an award presented at the Berlin International Film Festival from 1956 to 2020. It was given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance and was cho ...

award.

Plot

A middle-class woman in Tokyo, Naoko Ishikawa ( Sachiko Hidari) lives with her husband in a shining new apartment building on a hill overlooking a slum. As her husband Eiichi (

Eiji Okada was a Japanese film actor from Chōshi, Chiba. Okada served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and was a miner and traveling salesman before becoming an actor. Internationally, his best-remembered roles include Lui ("him" in Fre ...

) becomes more entangled in his life as businessman, Naoko looks for ways to expand her own life even as her husband's life shrinks in scope and intimacy. She loses her sense of security when she becomes acquainted with poverty in her neighborhood. She finds herself strangely drawn to a rag-picker, Ikona (Kikuji Yamashita) who lives down below in a tin shack with a blind child and a dog, and the sheltering comforts of her middle-class existence inexorably fall away.

Cast

* Sachiko Hidari - Naoko Ishikawa * Kikuji Yamashita - Ikona *

- Eiichi Ishikawa *

Akio Hasegawa Akio (written: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , or in hiragana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese manga artist *, Japanese politician *, Japanese mathematician * Akio Ishii (石井昭男, bor ...

- Laundry Boy *

Yoshimi Hiramatsu Yoshimi is a unisex Japanese given name and can also be used as a surname. Possible writings *佳美, meaning "excellent, beautiful" *良美, meaning "good, beautiful" *好美, meaning "like, beautiful" *芳美, meaning "fragrant, beautiful" ...

- Nakano * Setsuko Horikoshi - Old lady of book store *

Takanobu Hozumi , better known as , was a Japanese actor and voice actor from Ōhito, Shizuoka (now Izunokuni, Shizuoka) attached to Mausu Promotion. He died of gallbladder cancer at the age of 87. Filmography Live-action Film * ''Baka ga Tank Deyattekur ...

- Doctor *

Hiromi Ichida Hiromi may refer to: *Hiromi, Ehime, city in Shikoku, Japan *Hiromi (given name), unisex Japanese given name (including a list of persons with the name) *Hiromi (comedian), Japanese comedian * Hiromi (model), Japanese fashion model *Meitetsu Hiromi ...

- Nurse * Mariko Igarashi - Blind girl *

Hiro Kasai Hiro may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Hiro (film), ''Hiro'' (film), a Canadian short film * Hiro (TV channel), an Italian channel * "Hiro's Song", by Ben Folds * "Yuko and Hiro", a Blur song * "Letter from Hiro", a song by The Vapors, off Ne ...

- Ghetto guy * Shûji Kawabe - Detective * Toshie Kimura - Sasaki * Masakazu Kuwayama - Laundry owner *

Toshio Matsumoto (25 March 1932 – 12 April 2017) was a Japanese film director and video artist. Biography Matsumoto was born in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan and graduated from Tokyo University in 1955. His first short was ''Ginrin'', which he made in 195 ...

- Laundry man * Yukio Ninagawa - Balloon guy * Kazuya Oguri * Miyoko Takahashi - Ghetto woman

Awards

In 1964, Sachiko Hidari also won the

at the

for her film '' The Insect Woman'' directed by Shohei Imamura. The film was nominated for Golden Bear, but won OCIC Award and Youth Film Award for best feature film. In Japan, Hidari won Best Actress at Blue Ribbon Award,

Mainichi Film Award The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 193 ...

and

Kinema Junpo Award , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ...

References

External links

* 1963 films 1963 drama films Japanese black-and-white films Films directed by Susumu Hani 1960s Japanese-language films 1960s Japanese films Japanese drama films {{1960s-Japan-film-stub