Floating Clouds
浮雲
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A woman follows a married man through postwar ruin — Naruse's masterpiece of attachment without hope.
In 1943 Yukiko Koda goes to French Indochina as a typist for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. There she meets Kengo Tomioka, an engineer with the ministry. She dislikes him at first; then, knowing he has a wife, she becomes his lover. When the war ends he goes home ahead of her, promising to divorce his wife, Kuniko.
In post-war Tokyo Yukiko finds him still married. She leaves him and becomes the mistress of an American soldier; when they meet again they blame each other and end up together once more. Tomioka's business is failing, and he takes Yukiko to the hot-spring town of Ikaho. Seikichi, the owner of a bar called Borneo, takes a liking to him and puts them up, and Tomioka begins an affair with Seikichi's young wife, Osei. Yukiko sees it, and they leave.
Pregnant by Tomioka, Yukiko goes to him and finds him living with Osei. She borrows money for an abortion from her brother-in-law, Iba, who once raped her. In her hospital bed she reads in the newspaper that Seikichi has strangled Osei. Iba has since grown rich as the founder of a new religion, and Yukiko lets him keep her. Tomioka, down on his luck, comes to tell her that Kuniko has died of illness.
When Tomioka is posted to Yakushima, a remote island of endless rain, Yukiko takes money from Iba, leaves, and begs to go with him. She is already ill. On the ship a doctor tells her not to go on; she insists. On the island she weakens until she can barely move. One day of pouring rain, Tomioka is called from work: she has taken a turn for the worse. By the time he reaches her, she is dead. He sends the others away and, weeping, makes up her face for burial.
Starring
Hideko Takamineas Yukiko Koda
A former typist who met Tomioka in wartime Indochina and cannot let him go through the hard years after the war.
Yukiko Koda’s story
Yukiko goes alone to wartime Indochina as a government typist, dislikes Tomioka's sharp tongue, then becomes his lover, believing he will leave his wife. In post-war Tokyo he will not, and she leaves him to become an American soldier's mistress; he keeps coming back, and so does she. At Ikaho she sees him take up with Osei, a bar owner's young wife. Pregnant by him, she finds him living with Osei, and borrows the money for an abortion from her brother-in-law, Iba, who once raped her; later she lets Iba keep her. When Tomioka is posted to Yakushima, she takes money from Iba and begs to go with him. She is already ill, and a doctor tells her not to go. On the island she dies while he is at work, and he makes up her face, weeping.
Masayuki Morias Kengo Tomioka
A married forestry engineer, drifting after the defeat, who promises Yukiko everything and keeps failing her.
Kengo Tomioka’s story
In wartime Indochina Tomioka takes Yukiko as his lover, though he has a wife, Kuniko, at home. When the war ends he goes home ahead of her, promising to divorce, and does not; he will not leave his sickly wife, yet he keeps coming back to Yukiko. With his business failing, he takes her to Ikaho, where he begins an affair with Osei, the young wife of the bar owner who has befriended him, and later lives with her in Tokyo. Her husband strangles her. When Kuniko dies, Tomioka comes to Yukiko to borrow money for the funeral. Posted to Yakushima, an island of endless rain, he takes Yukiko with him, though she is ill. One day of pouring rain he is called from work and finds her dead. He sends the others away and, weeping, makes up her face.
Mariko Okadaas Osei
The young wife of a bar owner in Ikaho, who becomes Tomioka's lover and is killed by her husband.
Isao Yamagataas Sugio Iba
Yukiko's brother-in-law, who once raped her and later grows rich as the founder of a new religion.
Chieko Nakakitaas Kuniko
Tomioka's sickly wife, whom he never leaves, and who dies of her illness.
Daisuke Katoas Seikichi Mukai
The owner of the Borneo bar in Ikaho, who befriends Tomioka and later strangles his wife, Osei.
Why it matters
Floating Clouds is among the most admired Japanese films of the 1950s. Kinema Junpo's critics named it the best Japanese film of 1955 and gave their director and acting prizes to Mikio Naruse, Hideko Takamine and Masayuki Mori, and Yasujiro Ozu called it a real masterpiece, a picture he could never have made. It is a love story without a single moment of rescue. Yukiko's post-war life passes through much of what defeat left women to deal with — a job lost with the empire, a man who promised and did not deliver, an American soldier, an abortion paid for by the man who raped her — and the film judges her for none of it. What it examines is attachment: why a woman stays bound to a man who keeps failing her, and whether that loyalty is a weakness or the one choice she ever made entirely for herself.