Based on a novel by Fumiko Hayashi, FLOATING CLOUDS is Naruse’s most admired film, winner of Japan’s annual Kinema Jumpo poll, and a tremendous success with both public and critics. A typist (Hideko Takamine) and a married man (Masayuki Mori) meet in occupied Indochina during the war. This moment of bliss yokes them together in a tormented relationship that stretches across postwar Japan and its history, moving from the bombed-out ruins of Tokyo to a powerful climax on the rainy southern island of Yakushima. (MR) Screened in 2006 as part of Mikio Naruse: Scattered Clouds and Lonely Land.