Yearning · reception & legacy
1964 · Mikio Naruse
How Yearning has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Naruse was barely known outside Japan for decades — the 'fourth master' overshadowed by Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa — and Yearning only found its global audience through the retrospectives and Criterion-era rediscovery that rehabilitated him. It's now routinely ranked among his two or three finest films.
What's debated
The ending is the debate: cinephiles argue endlessly over those final minutes — and, more broadly, over whether Naruse deserves to displace Ozu in the Japanese-masters pecking order.
Its footprint
Among film lovers this is an 'ending' film — the last stretch gets invoked whenever people list cinema's most devastating finales, usually alongside Kurosawa's famous line that Naruse's style is like a great river with a calm surface and a raging current in its depths.
Where it stands
A canon climber and Naruse-head badge of honour — after When a Woman Ascends the Stairs pulls you in, Yearning is the one people insist you see next.