Sightlines · reception

How Yearning was received

1964 · Mikio Naruse · Yearning on Sightlines

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 honor — after When a Woman Ascends the Stairs pulls you in, Yearning is the one people insist you see next.

Did you know? Yuzo Kayama was at the time one of Japan's biggest matinee idols, star of Toho's breezy 'Young Guy' (Wakadaishō) comedies — so 1964 audiences watched their sunniest pop star turned into Naruse's brooding, lovelorn brother-in-law. Hideko Takamine, meanwhile, was Naruse's career-long muse, with well over a dozen films together.