山の音 - The Sound of the Mountain 1954 (Naruse Mikio)

Modernity's Attack on Tradition.

            Naruse Mikio’s The Sound of the Mountain is an adaptation of a novel by Yasunari Kawabata. The original tells the story of an aging man on the verge of death who is stricken further with the realization that he has had little positive influence on the lives of his family. In his attempts to reclaim his presence within the household, he discovers his son is keeping a mistress out of sight of his daughter-in-law, a woman who he himself becomes further attached to as the story progresses.

              While Kawabata’s novel is a melancholic tale of lost moments and failed chances, Naruse’s film version ties important current issues into the narrative and overwhelms the inherent tradition of the original with a wave of modernity. The values of a previous generation are challenged and the gap that divides the old with the young is widening year by year; understanding each other becomes an increasing challenge and communication breaks down.

              In the 1950’s of Japan, various woman’s movements were established and consequently split into two sides. Those that advocated women’s rights and those who wished to protect the traditions of the household by defending the values of motherhood and homemaking. Many of Naruse’s films of this time period focused on issues that chiefly affected women. While Late Chrysanthemums focuses on the strife of women in the workplace and the challenges of being given equal grounding, The Sound of the Mountain looks toward the other side of the coin, woman in the household and consequently the dissolution of the family unit.

           The Sound of the Mountain can easily be viewed as a critique on the society of the time. It illustrates the problems that modernity on mass has created for the traditional mind of Japan where new ideas, liberties and fresh desires corrupt the pastimes that have existed for generations. Each character is a separate entity within the film, an island that considers themselves to be the heroes of their own stories, no matter how terrible their acts may be.

              Much like the original text, The Sound of the Mountain’s plot centers around one family living in the ancient seaside town of Kawabata and depicts the increasingly close relationship between Shingo and his daughter-in-law, Kikuko. As Kikuko’s marriage with her philandering husband, Shuichi, disintegrates it is to Shingo that she turns and although it is never consummated, it would appear that the feelings that Shingo has for Kikuko are no longer appropriate for a father-in-law. Modernity in this case appears to be the catalyst that sets off the dissolution and collapse of the family. Shingo, the supposed head of the household has lost touch with his children and blames himself for their failures in their own relationships. Shuichi, unsatisfied with the life offered to him seeks relief and pleasure outside the marital bed and possesses a mistress. Shingo’s daughter has returned back to her parent’s care, with two children in toe after her marriage collapses. Shingo’s own marriage appears to be loveless, relying solely as a working relationship and Kikuko who, after seeing the many examples of unhappiness that surround her, decides to turn away from this life to seek another. This is amplified by her choice to have an abortion. After she becomes impregnated by Shuichi, she looks to the life she may have if she continued down that road, forever linked to a man who treats her with nothing but distain. She escapes one life but to what avail? The abyss that modernity has caused is stretched before her at the film’s end.

           What really brings the emotion to life in this film is its pace. The flow of the film carries the protagonists toward their own destruction at an alarming pace and never lets up. Fast cuts, endless medium shots and the overall speed of the film pushes each character towards a life of isolation, sacrifice or death.

              The acting within The Sound of the Mountain is also something of note. It is said that on set Naruse would rarely give criticism; refusing to offer his opinion on a performance, his silence was apparently thought to be downright malicious at times. As a result of being a completely unresponsive director, he placed his actors and actresses in a desperate and emotionally vulnerable state and thus tapped in to the characters he wished to capture. If one were to compare the acting skill seen in The Sound of the Mountain to other Japanese films of the period then the latter would certainly appear melodramatic to Naruse’s down to earth creation. Capturing the precise frame of mind allows the story of Shingo, played by Yamamyra Sou, and Kikuko played by Hara Setsuko (the darling of Japanese cinema in that period) to generate complete empathy for the audience to relate to. 

 　　　　　The Sound of the Mountain is a film of transitions. It shows the possibilities of the future but depicts the heartbreaking realization that in order for the unstoppable nature of modernity to exist certain traditions must die. The conclusion of this film is not explosive; it is as sad and quiet as autumn leaves falling. Change is inevitable and life goes on.