Shimizu elegy: capital, patriarchy, and desire for freedom in Naruse Mikio’s Yearning (1964)

ABSTRACT Naruse Mikio’s Yearning (Midareru) is a melodrama released in 1964, at the height of Japan’s high-speed economic growth. A commonly accepted reading of this film focuses on the intimate relationship between the protagonist Morita Reiko and her brother-in-law, but this article understands the significance of the film within its socioeconomic and sociospatial context, that is, the growing dominance of big-capital corporations in the distribution and retail industries and the transformation of space and spatial relations instigated by it. I first underscore that this is a film about a historically and geographically specific place, Shimizu in Shizuoka prefecture in the early 1960s, and then examine how it communicates the tension created by intense capitalist expansion in places and people in this provincial city. I read the protagonist’s departure from the family and the city as her search of freedom from the patriarchal reorganization of the family business in an increasingly competitive industrial society. Through this reading, I articulate the historically specific nature of this melodrama and exploit its potential as a text that mediates contemporary Japan’s experiences of capitalist expansion, patriarchy, and social relations—especially those related to gender—during high-speed growth.