Hōrōki or Lonely Lane (Naruse Mikio 1952) is an adaptation of Hayashi Fumiko’s autobiographic novel of the same title, based on her vagabond life before she gained nation-wide fame. The film contains a string of notable actors with the protagonist Hayashi Fumiko played by Takamine Hideko. In addition, Tanaka Kinuyo is featured as Kishi, Fumiko’s mother, Nakaya Noboru as Date and Takarada Akira as Fukuchi, two romantic interests of Fumiko, and Kato Daisuke as Yasuoka, a widowed neighbour. Shot through a realistic view on the working class society of Japan in the early 1900s, Hōrōki may be categorized as a shomin-geki film, a prevalent genre in many of Naruse’s later works.
Hōrōki centres on the shomin or working-class life of Fumiko, who grows up in a nomadic, impoverished environment in Kyushu. Despite graduating from high school, Fumiko still lives with her mother in Tokyo, continuing to provide financial support to her step father. Through her chance encounters with contemporary writers, including Date and Fukuchi, Fumiko slowly and with great hardship, begins to establish her writing career. Moreover, her relationships with Date, Fukuchi and Yasuoka, the three prominent male characters in Hōrōki, reveal Fumiko’s true characteristics and development beneath her detached, skeptical composure.
Although Fumiko is completely enamoured by the handsome Date who at first seemingly sweeps her off her feet and introduces her to a network of contemporary writers, she acknowledges that her happiness is only temporary. Naruse’s long shot of Fumiko walking around a cemetery at nighttime, after being betrayed by Date, reflects her loneliness and vulnerability. This bitter experience enables Fumiko to shed her youthful innocence and further develop her strength and independence, as well as her ambition to establish herself in society as a distinguished writer.
Fumiko’s relationship with Fukuchi is the most dramatic and revealing, honestly capturing the confessional I-novel tone of Hōrōki. Repeated shots of Fumiko and Fukuchi vigorously writing at separate desks in their sparsely furnished house with empty stomachs indicate the growing distance of their relationship. Moreover, Fukuchi is devastated every time his work is rejected by a publisher, in contrast to Fumiko who continues to pursue her career as a writer, unwearied by constant criticism. Fukuchi directs his frustration towards Fumiko through his increasingly abusive behaviour, yet Fumiko refuses to leave him as she is tired of her wandering, nomadic life. Her decision to stay with Fukuchi indicates that, despite the strength and perseverance she exhibits throughout the film, Fumiko is far from perfect with a complex personality, like any other human being.
Yet it is through these tragic experiences in which Fumiko develops her distinct writing style which, according to Shirasaka, one of her friends from the literary circle, represents the “garbage” of society. Although Shirasaka’s claim has a disturbed, condescending overtone, Fukuchi later indicates how Fumiko’s writing reveals the beauty within the ugliness because of its true portrayal of life. The scene in which Fukuchi makes this claim is particularly striking, as he shows up at Fumiko’s celebration party for Hōrōki, and delivers his line while looking straight at Fumiko. Despite his personal hatred towards her for candidly revealing their relationship in her book, Fukuchi admits that from the perspective of a professional writer, he was moved by her work’s sincerity.
Yasuoka, Fumiko’s former neighbour, is perhaps the only person in the Hōrōki that is portrayed as kind-hearted, lending money to Fumiko in times of crisis and expressing concern for her impoverished lifestyle. Although Fumiko shrugs off the attention Yasuoka gives her, they retain their friendship over their lifespan and he becomes her confidant. As Fumiko consoles Yasuoka if he sees her as a heartless person, while facing each other in Fumiko’s elaborate home, she shows her inner turmoil, caught between success and sacrifice.
The novelist Hayashi Fumiko often referred to the phrase, “[the] life of a flower is short and full of suffering”, which directly mirrors the story of Fumiko, one of repeated rejection, betrayal, and sacrifice. Despite her accomplished position as one of the best selling female authors of the 20th century with a loving husband and family, Fumiko is not completely happy with her life. She now faces new problems of meeting one deadline after another and dealing with people who expect her to aid them because of her working class background. Fumiko’s pessimistic yet realistic outlook on life emphasizes the underlying theme of Hōrōki – in order to achieve success, sacrifice and isolation is inevitable. Kurosawa Akira has noted that Naruse Mikio’s films to resemble a “river with a calm surface and raging current in its depths.” Hōrōki is no exception to Kurosawa’s claim; it is a film well beyond its time that can be enjoyed by a wide range of audiences. Takamine’s superb portrayal of the story of a woman and her conflicting emotions developed through her poverty, writing career, and relationships with people including Date, Fukuchi, and Yasuoka, accurately depicts the imperfection, transience, and beauty of life.