Judith Rosenberg on Piano

(Nasanu naka). Naruse was commissioned to make Not Blood Relations by the Shochiku studio, which wanted to continue a string of hit films based on famous melodramatic novels. Working with a script by Kogo Noda, who co-wrote many of Ozu's films, including Tokyo Story, Naruse added nuance and psychological acuity to the story of a woman who abandoned her daughter seven years ago but now wants to win her back. Though she can offer a better standard of living, the biological mother finds herself in a struggle with the girl's adoptive mother—"not blood relations"—whom the girl prefers. Naruse rejects the good mother/bad mother schema that many other films indulged in, concentrating on the emotional turmoil of the woman who learns that she cannot easily undo her past.

• Written by Kogo Noda. With Shinyo Nara, Yukiko Tsukuba. (95 mins, Silent with Japanese intertitles and English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, A Collection of National Film Center, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, permission Janus/Criterion Collection)