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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2005 |
Light from the East: Celebrating Japanese Cinema
Shochiku 110 - Naruse 100 -- Prog. 4 |
| Film Title |
KAGIRINAKI HODO |
| Alternative Title 1 |
[LA STRADA SENZA FINE] |
| Alternative Title 2 |
[STREET WITHOUT END] |
| Alternative Title 3 |
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| Country |
Japan |
| Release Date |
26 April 1934 |
| Production Co. |
Shochiku |
| Director |
Mikio Naruse |
| Format |
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Speed (fps) |
| 35mm |
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24 |
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| Footage |
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Time |
| 7835 ft. |
|
87' |
| Archive Source |
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| Print Notes |
Didascalie in giapponese sottotitolate in inglese / Japanese intertitles, English subtitles |
| Cast |
| Setsuko Shinobu, Akio Isono, Hikaru Yamanouchi, Nobuko Wakaba, Fumiko Katsuragi, Shinichi Tanaka, Chiyoko Katori, Ichiro Yuki, Yukiko Inoue |
| |
| Other Credits |
| sogg./story: dal romanzo di/from the novel by Komatsu Kitamura; adatt./adapt: Jitsuzo Ikeda; f./ph: Suketaro Ikai |
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| Program Notes |
Sugiko is hit by a car on her way to meet her boyfriend Harada, and is taken to the hospital. Harada, unaware of this, mistakenly believes that Sugiko has betrayed him, and returns to his hometown. Yamauchi, the man who was driving the car that hit Sugiko, proposes to her. Sugiko marries Yamauchi, but finds that the bourgeois lifestyle of his family does not suit her. She leaves him and goes back to work as a waitress. Yamauchi cannot give her up, but he dies, and Sugiko starts her life anew.
Naruse made his directorial debut in 1930, at a time when he would have been directing talkies if he had been working in North America or Europe. However, he directed over 20 silent films, apparently despite his desire to direct sound films. Although Shochiku was the first Japanese studio to develop an original sound system (the Tsuchihashi Sound System), in 1931, it continued to produce both silent and sound films, as well as many hybrid “sound versions”, until 1936, when the Kamata studio was closed. Shochiku officially kept Naruse in the position of assistant director, and did not give him an opportunity to direct a full talkie, so Naruse eventually decided to move to P.C.L., the precursor to Toho. This film was thus Naruse’s last Shochiku film, and his last silent. Although it is not of the same calibre as his earlier films, such as Kimi to wakarete (Farewell to You) and Yogoto no yume (Every Night’s Dream), we can enjoy its so-called “Kamata Modernism” (please see the note for Shimizu’s 1929 film Fue no shiratama [Eternal Heart] in Prog. 8 for more about this concept], expressed through the characters, like the heroine who quickly changes boyfriends, and her girlfriend who decides to be a film actress. – FUMIKO TSUNEISHI
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