Floating Clouds

Floating Clouds (浮雲, Ukigumo) is a 1955 black-and-white Japanese film drama directed by Mikio Naruse. It is based on a novel with the same name by Japanese author and poet Fumiko Hayashi, written just before she died in 1951. The novel is set after World War II and contains the common post-war theme of wandering; the female main character struggles to find where she belongs in post-war Japan, and ends up floating endlessly until her death at the novel's end.

The film is Naruse's most popular film in Japan, and was in 1995 named the third best film in Japanese film history.

Plot

The film follows Yukiko Koda, a woman who has just returned to Japan from French Indochina, where she has been working as a secretary. Yukiko seeks out Kengo, with whom she had an affair in Da Lat during the war. They renew their affair, but Kengo tells Yukiko he is unable to leave his wife. Brightly lit flashback of their time in Indochina contrasts with the sombre tones of the film's present.

Cast