Sound of the Mountain

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

Liked this one quite a bit - it's a weird inverse of LATE SPRING
although not a patch on that film. Big problem I had with this movie:
What the fuck is Ken Uehara's major malfunction?

[Zach Campbell]

Hello all. I've been lurking because unlike most of
you, I'm not one of the hardcore attendees at the
Naruse festival. (I admire those of you who are going
the distance, though!)

I did see SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN on Friday and have
been mulling it over. Though I went into it with the
best of predispositions, I was decidedly not crazy
about it. The major problem seemed to me that the
film spent way too much energy making Setsuko Hara and
the father-in-law as saintly and sympathetic as
possible, and Ken Uehara as unsympathetic as possible.
If others agree with me on this point, can they shed
some light on whether it comes from the Kawabata
source? (The only Kawabata I've read--in
translation--is SNOW COUNTRY.)

It may be that I'm so conditioned to seeing Setsuko
Hara's heart break opaquely in Ozu that this more
transparent depiction was just too rough for me.
Rightly or wrongly, it felt exploitative.

The film had quite a beautiful ending, though.

Can anyone help me out with this? Jaime?

--Zach

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

Let me try and get some thoughts down, perhaps it will help me
understand the film better.

It seemed to me at first that the film is far more crude than LATE
SPRING or the other two Ozus with their variations on the LATE SPRING
premise (which must've been like the RIO BRAVO schema was to Hawks,
which could have extended out forever and ever if he continued living).
It's probably more crude than the Naruses that I think are real
masterpieces.

But I really like the film - the ending is really weird and made me
question all that I'd seen before it. As I said above, I take issue
with the monolithic asshole-ness of Ken Uehara. But the ending pulls
the rug out from under the saintly qualities we've been meant to read
in Sô Yamamura's character, and Hara's saintliness has already been
undercut by her actions/behavior. In essence, he "aborts" Setsuko Hara
after she aborts her baby. Not because of it, directly, perhaps, but
there's a chain of events and those are crucial links. He's really
quite cold about it, although it's clear he loves her as a
daughter...oh, what a weird movie!

She's not so great, either. Like 99% of the cinephile planet I'm
conditioned to see Setsuko Hara as a D.W. Griffith-style saint. It's
just what happens: I see Setsuko Hara, I feel instinctively protective
towards her. (My attitudes and feelings toward Hideko Takamine are
more complex.) But there's an element of deception in what she does in
the movie. She's always hiding or trying to conceal herself or her
feelings, sometimes badly - Yamamura plays along, cheerfully asking her
what she'd write in a suicide note when she's clearly an
emotional/physical wreck. (Possible key to Uehara's attitude: in
contrast to his dad, he doesn't play along.) There's that scene where
she's about to write something - a suicide note? - and she moves
quickly to cover it up when she hears her father-in-law. You can read
her deceptiveness as characteristic of an elaborate, ritualistic and
well-practised self-martyrdom, i.e. "Don't worry about me, I'm sorry
for getting blood and tears everywhere, I'll clean it up, etc." In
fact, I think that's what we're meant to see on the surface. And maybe
she feels that way about herself. I'd also point out that I feel like
she takes no small amount of masochistic pleasure in her role.

Okay, so the husband isn't great - clearly. He's a dick. And even if
you argue that he's right to behave cruelly towards Hara, it isn't much
of a character, I think.

Yamamura and Hara seem great, they get saintly music and lighting, but
they aren't great either. She gets an abortion because she figures she
can't have a child with this husband - and then tries to carry on as if
(at best) nothing happened or (at worst) she's weeping all the time and
can barely move because she figures she can chalk it up to "my
husband's infidelity is killing me," etc. To me, getting an abortion
is a Medea-grade flashing red light with football signal horn telling
me there's some serious soul-sickness going on with a female movie
character. In fact, Kikuko's rationale for aborting her baby isn't far
off from Medea's, for killing her children: a husband's infidelity.

Yamamura does some awful things, too, although killing an unborn baby
isn't among them: he's instrumental in covering up his son's
infidelities, he's ruthless - with a smile - in making Hara work her
fingers to the bone as their maid. (He even apologizes for it, that
scene where she's carrying tea to them, barely able to hold herself
perpendicular to the earth, but doesn't lift a finger to help her or
anything.) And he's something of a busybody, as well. Above and
beyond all this he strikes the posture of a morally irreproachable and
jovial grandfather/father figure.

The scene in which the secretary tries on the Noh mask is so awesome.
Earmarked for my next "moments out of time" list.

Well, some messy thoughts on a troubling movie. It's even better than
I thought before writing this post.

Jaime

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

The regrettable Mike D'Angelo sums up a complicated movie with a crass
"joke title" (again):

"Setsuko Hara Smiles Bravely Through Her Tears (Again)"

http://www.panix.com/~dangelo/

[Daniel Kasman]

Jaime, I liked your thoughts on this film a lot.  I loved this movie, but did not see a Late Spring connection in the slightest.

But this may be perhaps the "weirdest" Naruse I've seen, everything from the Noh mask, heavy rainstorm (those candles were terrific!), and spontaneous nose bleeds to the sheer frankness everyone has eithe each other (i.e. father and son discussing infidelity on train, Uehara making self-deprecating public wisecracks about how lousy he is as a husband, the above mentioned suicide note question) that seems to coat everything in thick, thick layers of guilt.  I'm surprised when discussing the saintly qualities of the characters you didn't mention Yamamura's relationship with his daughter, which not only is screwed up but we can see has screwed up her relationship to her own daughter.  This connection is a crucial ingredient, I think, to Uehara's lousy husbanding and to Hara's motivation for the abortion.  Ultimately, though, I think Hara is a mystery at the center of the film.  Hell, we get more insight into the girl Uehara is sleeping with than we do into Hara.  As a side note, I think the way Naruse elaborates characters by proxy is evident on how much screen time the secretary gets rather than the actual woman having an affair.  The behavior of the former speaks more to me about the young woman than the scene with the woman herself does.

-Daniel

[Michael Kerpan]

I'm with Jaime on this -- These characters are tremendously complex.
Hara and Yamamura are not at all saintly. They are bot damaged goods
in their own right -- but they are damaged goods that are co-dependent
(for good and for bad).

I don't, however, think this is "crude" -- rather it is "raw" -- like
an open wound, that keeps getting ripped open. And I think this is not
only a masterpiece, but one of Naruse's best films.

[Dan Sallitt]

> I did see SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN on Friday and have
> been mulling it over. Though I went into it with the
> best of predispositions, I was decidedly not crazy
> about it.

I never cared much for it on my first two viewings. This time I finally
liked it, though it's not one of my very favorites.

> The major problem seemed to me that the
> film spent way too much energy making Setsuko Hara and
> the father-in-law as saintly and sympathetic as
> possible, and Ken Uehara as unsympathetic as possible.

I guess I see it as more complicated than that, in all three cases.

Yamamura is a good guy, but you get the feeling that it's due at least to
some extent to the effects of age. When Uehara asks him if he never had a
mistress, he doesn't say no. He is tagged repeatedly for having damaged
the life of his daughter Nakakita by never showing her affection. His
compromising the position of his secretary Sugi is not exactly criticized,
but the film makes it clear that it costs the girl her job. My sense is
that his kindness to Hara is largely motivated by some romantic ideal that
she incarnates for him, rather than by humanitarian considerations.

Uehara is obviously a bastard, but he is a fascinating, intelligent, and
complicated bastard, the kind one sees in real life. His relationship
with his dad Yamamura is interesting, very honest - Uehara shows no
concern for his dad's occasional anger, but never returns it. He is the
kind of guy who won't show an emotion or yield any power, but he seems to
understand what's going on with Hara better than the other observers.
And I believe Yamamura when he tells Hara at the end that Uehara loves
her. Remember his line, "One is a torrent, the other a lake"? A classic
womanizer's defense, but not without appreciation.

As for Hara, while enacting the archetype of the long-suffering, patient
Japanese woman, she has, I believe, ended the marriage in her mind before
the movie begins, and is beyond forgiveness. I presume that her decision
to override her husband and abort her pregnancy was a bit shocking to
Japanese audiences in 1954.

Here's my little blurb. - Dan

--------------

Sound of the Mountain. Unusual material for Naruse, partly because of the
hints of sexual perversity, but also because the story is essentially told
from the point of view of an observer (Yamamura), which has the effect of
hiding the details of the bad marriage and the husband's affairs, giving
us instead a pile of second-hand information. Naruse's response to this
complex material is more overtly poetic than usual: he sometimes cuts
directly to closeups where establishing shots are expected, and often ends
scenes with close shots that emphasize mystery instead of giving
information. One of the consequences of pinning the story to Yamamura's
perspective is that the film becomes a wide-ranging inquiry into the lives
of women at a moment in Japanese culture: not only daughter-in-law Hara
and daughter Nakakita (whose hard luck Yamamura is implicated in), but
also the dark underworld of Uehara's abused lovers, with Yoko Sugi playing
Heurtebise to Yamamura's Orpheus. The film has a mirror-image narrative
that is foreshadowed from the early scenes: that good-girl, childlike
Hara, far from waiting patiently for her husband to return to her, is
silently dedicated to a hatred that will unilaterally abort a pregnancy
and terminate the marriage. Though I liked the film much more than ever
before, the climax still feels unsatisfying to me, perhaps because Hara's
decisive actions occur off-camera and away from home. Naruse seems to be
trying to compensate for this absence by punching up Yamamura's encounter
with Uehara's pregnant lover, concealing her face until the last moment
and giving her an emotional turn that seems out of proportion to her
dramatic importance. But the evocative geometry of the last scene does a
lot to make up for any structural problems.

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

Now I want to see it again! I'm enjoying this thread very much.

[Dan Sallitt]

> But this may be perhaps the "weirdest" Naruse I've seen, everything from the
> Noh mask, heavy rainstorm (those candles were terrific!), and spontaneous
> nose bleeds

Do you think Uehara hit her? I do. Nosebleeds aren't a symptom of
pregnancy, are they?

I agree about the weirdness (and I like your list of illustrations).
Presumably it has something to do with Kawabata's novel. - Dan

[Michael Kerpan]

FWIW -- Kawabata's novel is also a masterpiece. Curiously, the movie
ends _before_ the book does. Naruse's film is even more complex and
unsettling than the book.

I believe I have a subtitled video somewhere (but have never digitized
this). It's not as pretty as the new print (or the new Toho DVD) by a
long shot, though.

BTW, I don't think Hara has the abortion out of hatred as much as
terror (and disgust).

[Zach Campbell]

Great to read some (positive) thoughts on SOUND OF THE
MOUNTAIN. I'll admit 'saintly' isn't really the right
word for Hara and Yamamura, though I still can't shake
the feeling that Naruse was expending too much on
making them sympathetic and Uehara unsympathetic. No
flaws or shortcomings or qualities the characters have
seem to have taken away from this. So I'm not arguing
the characters aren't complex--I think they are. But
on one viewing I don't think they're *handled* as
complexly by Naruse as I would like, perhaps.

Maybe it will take repeat viewings to come around;
maybe I just don't have my finger on the pulse with
Naruse yet. (For instance, I thought SUMMER CLOUDS
was fantastic, but it seems like affection for that
one is not very high.)

--Zach

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

Dan: I regret to say that I don't share your view of the film's
"problems," my instincts are to interpret Hara's offscreen actions as
part/parcel with What Naruse Does, and that the sudden introduction of
the long-hidden mistress is a textbook (but deftly deployed) Return of
the Repressed. I find it very exciting to compare and contrast Hara
and the Mistress. I don't see dad giving Hara any guilt money during
that final scene. Or any money. And if he had, I doubt her reaction
would've involved great doses of sarcasm and prideful defiance.

It's likely that Uehara hit his wife, but hadn't she already had her
abortion at that point? I'm given to attribute her myriad health
problems to that, more than anything else. Naruse is not one to
shortchange depictions of post-abortion health issues: recall the
famous scene of it in the following year's FLOATING CLOUDS.

It is tempting to see her nosebleed as spousal abuse but it's hard for
me to reconcile Uehara's crass and casual indifference with a tendency
towards domestic violence.

On the whole, though, thank you for pointing out some aspects of the
Uehara character that I'd forgotten. I'm still not sure how
complicated he is, I guess it depends on "what did he know and when did
he know it." That's one of the film's key puzzles, isn't it?

Wonder if the novel - if it's been translated to English - would shed
some light on the subject.

Mike: I was suggesting that the film had a basic crudeness and I'm not
sure if I agree with myself anymore! My feelings towards the film
changed 2-3 times in mid-post. It's still no LATE SPRING but I'm
comfortable in calling it a great film.

Dan, thanks for the compliment, and ditto the amazing candle sequence.
Some of the shots reminded me of the amazing stuff Teshigahara would do
in WOMAN IN THE DUNES, with those great shots of barely-registering
figures against a pitch black frame.

[Dan Sallitt]

> BTW, I don't think Hara has the abortion out of hatred as much as
> terror (and disgust).

I don't think she aborts to spite Uehara. I think she can't stand him,
and isn't planning to be around to raise a child with him.

There are those two very odd moments where, going to bed, Uehara calls
Hara's name: "Yukiko...." It's clear enough that he is summoning her for
sex. Each time, the scene ends on a look of utter despair on Hara's face.
Sleeping with him seems to be an ordeal for her.

There are at least two other moments when Hara hints at her feelings about
Uehara. One is where Yamamura tells Hara that the couple should live on
their own. Yamamura argues that the relationship might improve if the
couple was on its own - my distinct impression was that Hara couldn't tell
Yamamura that she didn't want the relationship to improve. The content of
the other scene is vague in my mind, but something is discussed that would
be good news if Hara cared for her husband, and the scene ends with her
looking down unhappily and giving a polite answer. - Dan

[Daniel Kasman]

The nosebleed came within the first third of the movie, and the father taking Hara to the hospital was in the second third, so I don't think there was a connection.

Was anyone else thinking that the secretary was going to turn out to be the woman Uehara was having the affair with?  Compounded with the sweet attention of detail to her position mediating between the father and the supposed other woman, the way Naruse playfully obscured her entrance into her house at the end I was betting heavily it was going to be Sugi.

-Daniel

On 11/12/05, jaime.c...@gmail.com <jaime.c...@gmail.com > wrote:

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

Zach, I wish you were able to see more of these films. But I won't rub
any salt there, I'm sure you wish the same thing.

> I still can't shake the feeling that Naruse was expending too much on making them
> sympathetic and Uehara unsympathetic. No flaws or shortcomings or qualities the
> characters have seem to have taken away from this. So I'm not arguing the
> characters aren't complex--I think they are. But on one viewing I don't think they're
> *handled* as complexly by Naruse as I would like, perhaps.

I'm a little perplexed at your obstinacy - although maybe that's my
vanity speaking, my objections re: SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN have more or
less dissolved over the last 5 hrs since leaving Film Forum. Clearly
Naruse - and, presumably, his material - is leading us down the garden
path, reflecting what the characters are doing to each other, and
themselves.

I quite liked SUMMER CLOUDS, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it,
on its neglected thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/NaruseRetro/browse_thread/thread/9ee08756514fa7b7

Jaime

[Michael Kerpan]

Yes, the novel is beautifully translated. Kawabata's original is much
more male-oriented. While the father (Yamamura) is still the nominal
viewpoint character in the film -- he seems to be more sensitive to the
various female perspectives he encounters than his novelistic
counterpart.

There is only one "Late Sprintg" -- and only one "Sound of the
Mountain". ;~}

I'm pretty sure the nosebleed is not due to physical spousal abuse.
FWIW, As a matter of popular Japanese iconography, nosebleeds are
linked to sexual arousal (one sees this is anime and manga -- and I
suspect this concept had literary precursors). Not sure how this fits
into SotM (but maybe it does).

Ozu also deals with abortion and post-abortion consequences inh his
devastating (neglected) masterpiece -- "Tokyo Twilight".

[Dan Sallitt]

> It's likely that Uehara hit his wife, but hadn't she already had her
> abortion at that point?

I don't think so. She has the abortion when Yamamura takes her to the
hospital in a cab - I think that comes later.

> It is tempting to see her nosebleed as spousal abuse but it's hard for
> me to reconcile Uehara's crass and casual indifference with a tendency
> towards domestic violence.

We hear later that he kicked his pregnant mistress in anger. I believe
there's another, more indirect reference to his physical violence in the
mistress's house.

It's true that Hara and the mistress are very different things in Uehara's
mind, so I'm not sure that he's violent with Hara. But Yamamura's
conversation with Uehara about the nosebleed was interesting. Uehara
mentions it, and Yamamura says, "You knew about it?" like a district
attorney. I had the feeling that Yamamura suspected foul play. Uehara
casually says something like, "She told me about it." He doesn't sound as
if he's lying, but then he's a cool customer in general. - Dan

[Michael Kerpan]

I think Uehara IS having as affair with the secretary (Sugi) ALSO.
Whether the affair is actually "consummated" -- the two very definitely
have a significant extra-work relationship.

[Dan Sallitt]

> I'll admit 'saintly' isn't really the right word for Hara and Yamamura,
> though I still can't shake the feeling that Naruse was expending too
> much on making them sympathetic and Uehara unsympathetic. No flaws or
> shortcomings or qualities the characters have seem to have taken away
> from this. So I'm not arguing the characters aren't complex--I think
> they are. But on one viewing I don't think they're *handled* as
> complexly by Naruse as I would like, perhaps.

You know, Naruse is one of those guys who doesn't mind showing people be
nasty. I have a predisposition toward directors who make everyone
sympathetic, and at times I have had to struggle with Naruse's willingness
to create offensive people. But I don't find his view of evil to be
self-flattering or a provocation, and I've become comfortable with it over
the years. - Dan

[Dan Sallitt]

> Was anyone else thinking that the secretary was going to turn out to be the
> woman Uehara was having the affair with? Compounded with the sweet attention
> of detail to her position mediating between the father and the supposed
> other woman, the way Naruse playfully obscured her entrance into her house
> at the end I was betting heavily it was going to be Sugi.

Or Hara! It was weird how he hid her face - a real miscalculation on his
part, I think.

I didn't think it was Sugi, because I thought it was established that he
was also having a part-time affair with Sugi. - Dan

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

Re: Uehara's violence towards the mistress. I can't believe I forgot
about that. Although I share your reading of that Uehara/Yamamura
conversation.

This marriage calls to mind - it's not an exact comparison but worth
thinking about - the sub-rosa marital hatred in Mike Leigh's ALL OR
NOTHING. As for father-daughter hatred I wonder if it's off the mark
to bring in Desplechin's KINGS AND QUEEN...imagine the kind of surprise
you'd feel (forgive my continued LATE SPRING hobby-horse here) if LS
had some third-act revelation that Chishu Ryu actually hated his
daughter and couldn't wait to be rid of her. But Yamamura doesn't hate
Hara, but I think one of the story's main objectives concerns his
building a case against her, finding evidence that will support his
final decision to be rid of her.

[Michael Kerpan]

I don't think Yamamura WANTS to be rid of Hara -- quite the contrary.
It is that he decides that, despite the convenience (and pleasantness)
of having her around, she NEEDS (and deserves) to be free. Either to
go away completely -- or to live together with her husband (undisturbed
by in-laws).

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

I see your interpetation, but think he can have more than one thing
going on in his feelings. We can look at his decision as altruistic
(setting her free), perversely just (he's cutting her out like a
cancer), or self-serving (said cutting out predicated on his
righteous-paterfamilias self-image), or sacrificial (great, now I'll
have to find some more help because lord knows I can't get my own tea),
or cruel, or correct, or inevitable...this complexity helps to feed my
estimation that this is a great film.

[Michael Kerpan]

In the book, it is clear that the father want's Hara's character to
remain married to his son -- and he is willing to retire (and move off
to the old dump of a rural estate) so as to remove entangements
complicating their lives. At the end of the book, the daughter-in-law
is back with the family again -- and the father is definitely talking
about implementing his plan (whether just talking or not, isn't clear).

[jaime.c...@gmail.com]

Mike, there's an English translation of the novel available for sale on
Amazon.com...should I just assume that it's the translation you
previously endorsed? I'm thinking of picking it up, but I feel weird
about those Amazon items without images, especially since several other
Kawabatas have been published in the US by the same major label.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679762647/103-1406591-7718235

Speaking of which, what other Kawabatas do you think are great?

Jaime

[Michael Kerpan]

Amazon has the same edition I do.

Other than SotM, I've only read a few (very) short stories -- and "Snow
Country" (really quite wonderful). I need to read more -- I keep
meaning to get to the library ...

[Kevin Lee]

That's what happens when you watch too many movies -- you end up seeing too little.

On 11/12/05, jaime.c...@gmail.com <jaime.c...@gmail.com > wrote:

[Michael Kerpan]

I can't find MdA's comments -- I only see that he didn't like the film
(I assume a 45 is a failing grade?).

That's okay -- I'd give his average review about a 20 (on his point
scale).

[Kevin Lee]

45 typically translates as "not in a position to like or dislike because I was too distracted thinking about the next film on my to-see list to really give this my full concentration and thus come up with anything other than superficial observations".

 

well that's my theory...  and don't even get me started on that point scale. it's the fucking worse insult ever to the art of evaluating a film.
 

[keith...@hotmail.com]

I give your post a 65.314, Mr. Lee. ;-)

Nah, I'm too friendly. Make it 100.

Keith