is a 1953 Japanese

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Mikio Naruse was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily Shoshimin-eiga, shōshimin-eiga ("common people drama") films with f ...

. The film is based on the short story ''Ani imōto'' by Saisei Murō.

Plot

Mon, the elder daughter of a rural family, returns home from Tokyo pregnant after an affair with college student Kobata. Her parents fear a scandal that might threaten the marriage prospects of the younger sister San. Also, Mon, as the film suggests, supports San's education by prostitution, as the father's business had to close down and the mother hardly manages to finance the family by running a small store. The ill-tempered eldest brother Inokichi decides to take on the role of a disciplinarian, first beating up Kobata when he visits the family to apologise, and later Mon. Still, Mon forgives him and returns to the capital.

Cast

Machiko Kyō Motoko Yano, better known as , was a Japanese actress who was active primarily in the 1950s. Considered one of Japan's first sex symbols and one of its greatest screen actresses, Kyō is best known for her critically acclaimed work with director ...

as Mon * Masayuki Mori as Inokichi *

Yoshiko Kuga was a Japanese actress. She starred in '' The Woman in the Rumor'' (1954), ''Equinox Flower'' (1958), and '' An Inlet of Muddy Water'' (1953). She won a Mainichi Film Award in 1954, and a Blue Ribbon Award in 1956. She was the wife of actor ...

as San *

Eiji Funakoshi was a Japanese actor. He received the Kinema Junpo Award for Best Actor and the Mainichi Film Concours for Best Actor for his performance in '' Fires on the Plain''. Biography Born Eijirō Funakoshi on 17 March 1923, in Tokyo, Eiji Funakoshi ...

as Kobata *

Kumeko Urabe Kumeko Urabe (), born , (October 5, 1902 – October 26, 1989) was a Japanese movie actress, one of the first in Empire of Japan, the country. She worked on stage and in film and television. Urabe was born in a rural part of Shizuoka Prefe ...

as Riki, the mother * Reizaburō Yamamoto as Akaza, the father

Reception

Six years after the film's premiere, film historian

Donald Richie Donald Richie (April 17, 1924 – February 19, 2013) was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also ...

objected that by "attempting to move from

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *American Realism *Classical Realism *Liter ...

to naturalism, Naruse is occasionally at fault in manipulating his characters a bit too obviously". In 2008, film scholar Alexander Jacoby called ''Older Brother, Younger Sister'' an "uncharacteristically brutal film in which the emotional tensions ��explode into physical violence". Keith Uhlich of ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...

'' gave the film 3.5 of 4 stars for showing Naruse's "considerable skill at portraying household dynamics".

Literary source

First published in 1934, Saisei Murō's short story ''Ani imōto'' had won the Bungei Konwakai Award. It had been adapted for the screen the first time in 1936 by Sotoji Kimura and again in 1976 by

Tadashi Imai was a Japanese film director known for social realist filmmaking informed by a left-wing perspective. His most noted films include '' An Inlet of Muddy Water'' (1953) and '' Bushido, Samurai Saga'' (1963). Life Although leaning towards left-win ...

. The story has been translated into English by

Edward Seidensticker Edward George Seidensticker (February 11, 1921 – August 26, 2007) was a noted post-World War II American scholar, historian, and preeminent translator of classical and contemporary Japanese literature. His English translation of the epic ''The ...

and is available in the anthology ''Modern Japanese Stories''.

Legacy

''Older Brother, Younger Sister'' was screened at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in 1985 as part of its retrospective on Mikio Naruse, and at the

Cinémathèque Française A cinematheque is an archive of films and film-related objects with an exhibition venue. Similarly to a book library (bibliothèque in French), a cinematheque is responsible for preserving and making available to the public film heritage. Typically ...

in 2016 and 2017.

References

External links

* * {{Mikio Naruse 1953 drama films 1953 films Japanese black-and-white films Japanese drama films Films based on short fiction Films directed by Mikio Naruse Daiei Film films Films scored by Ichirō Saitō 1950s Japanese films 1950s Japanese-language films Japanese-language drama films