The Girl in the Rumor

Director: Mikio Naruse

1935 / 55min / 35mm

Moving at a gallop throughout, packed with corybantic camerawork and jolting cuts, the sprightly The Girl in the Rumor weaves together three distinct storylines relating to a family-run sake store on the brink of financial catastrophe: the touch-and-go negotiations to marry off the clan’s eldest daughter, Kunie (Sachiko Chiba); Kunie’s attempts to welcome her widowed father’s longtime mistress, Oyu (Tomoko Ito), into their home, in spite of the protestations of her insubordinate half-sister, Kimiko (Ryuko Umezono); and the experiments made by family patriarch Kenkichi (Kō Mihashi) with a mind to refining and improving the family sake recipe. Following upon the critical and commercial success of his Wife! Be Like a Rose!, Naruse was clearly enjoying an unprecedented amount of creative freedom in making The Girl in the Rumor, and his exhilaration at tasting such unfamiliar liberty is infectious. “One of the most exciting of all Naruse films… So dense and textured that repeat viewings only deepen its mystery.” —Dan Sallitt

35mm print courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan