MIKIO NARUSE: ON MODERNITY AND WOMEN

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present the films by Mikio Naruse, a distinguished Japanese film director, within the frames of the genre conventions, as well as to place his films in the context of moral and economic changes taking place in Japan in the middle of the last century (with a particular emphasis on the ideological determinants of the process of modernization, and the place of women in modern society). In my opinion, most of his works follow the conventions of melodrama, as it is these conventions that allow the female viewer to assume the position of the subject; at the same time, the conventions present a critical view of the country during the time when patriarchal structures and the traditional family model disintegrated. My research perspective, therefore, is to regard the films primarily as cultural texts.