Hello, my name is Justin McLuhan, and I'm here today with Will Sloan.

And you're listening to The Important Cinema Club.

And today, we are talking about Mikio Narusei.

And if you think that Justin's voice is just a little lower, a little more mellow than it usually is,

doesn't have that kind of bombast that he's become known and beloved for. It's because we're talking about Japanese cinema. I want to be more serious than we usually are. It's because this poor boy is getting over a debilitating illness. Yes, that's why. I try not to destroy his throat. So it looks like it's going to be on me to provide the laughs, the energy, the enthusiasm.

Oh, no, he's making me cop on ready. All right. It's like I'm in a Japanese melodrama, and before I had my time, I'm, like, coughing up blood, being like, oh, it's almost overwilled. We got Akiru right across from me right here. Oh, God. I hope not. So, Mikio Nerusa, this is the first of four Japanese filmmakers

will be doing in the next four episodes. What I kept reading this week, of course, is that there are

three great mid-century Japanese otours who get all the attention, Kurosawa, Miziguchi, and

Ozu. And then there's Nerusay, who's just a little bit overlooked. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that.

One of them is that he was incredibly prolific.

And because of that, there is a kind of, where do I start?

Which is the best one?

Let's watch an Osu instead.

And a lot of them kind of look similar.

Yes, because he made

dramas about middle class people dealing with issues. There's also the fact that a lot of

his films are kind of fatalistic and nihilistic. That's what people keep saying about him,

that he's fatalistic, nihilistic. You see those words come up over and over again. And it's funny,

like they are downbeat.

They are tragic.

A word like nihilistic carries so much negative energy to it.

And I think these movies, these movies moved me very deeply.

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