Sound of the Mountain

Sound of the Mountain, adapted from the novel by Yasunari Kawabata, is a 1954 film directed by Mikio Naruse and starring Setsuko Hara. The story is of a man whose daughter's marriage has failed and who sees his son's marriage also failing, both due to infidelity. Japan has such a treasure of directors with such consistently good movies. Here's yet another film worth watching and then watching again.

Subscribers can watch it on Hulu. I watched it when they offered it free to everyone, but they don't offer them free longer than a week or so. I can't find a trailer or even a short clip online, which seems a shame. There's nothing like seeing a bit of a film to make you want to see the whole thing. I found this picture on Instagram:

Senses of Cinema says it is "possibly Naruse’s most perfect entry in his preferred genre of shomin-geki (films about the daily lives of the lower middle-classes), possessed of a measured pace and a melancholy, lyrical undercurrent." Slant Magazine says it's the director's favorite of his films. Rotten Tomatoes doesn't have a critics score, but the audience rating is 94%.