A Fond Face from the Past

[Dan Sallitt]

A 1941 patriotic short film, shown theatrically. It's light on overt
propaganda, though the moments of military affirmation occur where
they can do the most damage. The film's sleepy rural ambience is not
inflected by much plot, and the opening feels almost Fordian, with its
diagonal compositions of marching soldiers, children at play, and
quiet landscapes charged with a gentle nostalgia. When it emerges,
the story has a tang of absurdism: first a mother, and then her
daughter-in-law, journey to a city movie theater but fail to spot
their son/husband in a war newsreel where he is reported to appear,
then return home and lie to cover their embarrassment. The highlight
of the movie is the mother's expedition, replete with interesting
detail: we see her hitching a ride on a neighbor's cart, eating her
dinner on a mat in the theater, looking distractedly at the side of
the room during the newsreels, then wiping tears from her eyes while
the narrator drones on. But Naruse does not indicate the exact point
where her vigilance lapses: only the absence of dramatic punctuation
during the newsreel, and her asking her neighbors if the newsreels are
over, indicate that she has missed her son's appearance. The daughter-
in-law's voyage (including an anomalous, exciting tracking shot of
soldiers in combat, revealed to be the point of view of the daughter-
in-law looking at maneuvers from a passing bus - reflexive humor
shading into subversion) fails more mysteriously, and Naruse
eventually clears up the mystery with a patriotic cliché that ends the
film on a quiet but upbeat note. All in all, Naruse's deadpan
absurdism, appealing as it is, doesn't quite seize ownership of the
project.