The Cinematheque

“One of the great cinematic visions of an artistic vocation and the passions that energize it.”

Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Naruse’s sixth and final film based on a Hayashi Fumiko work serves as a loving paean to the literary icon whose writing underpins the director’s most beloved films. Drawn both from Hayashi’s autobiographical novel (translated as Diary of a Vagabond) and its stage adaptation, this melodramatic biopic casts Naruse lead Takamine Hideko as the pre-fame author, here a stoic, near-destitute writer unable to hold a job or the attention of a lover. Her encounter with Fukuchi (Takarada Akira, of Godzilla fame), a similarly struggling artist, sets a relationship in motion marked by unrequited care and escalating abuse. While not impervious to mythmaking in its chronicling of Hayashi’s ascent from abject poverty to literary stardom, the film is mindful of keeping its heroine human—she is flawed, at times unsympathetic, and taken in by the deliverance of love in a loveless world. The great Tanaka Kinuyo portrays her mother.

In Japanese with English subtitles

“A Wanderer’s Notebook did not receive as much critical acclaim as Floating Clouds, but I think perhaps that both Mr. Naruse and I liked it better.”

Takamine Hideko