Summary
A dew-drenched dawn unfurls over mist-latticed rice paddies where Teruko, raw as wind through reeds, first beholds Yanagisawa—urban nobility incarnate, silk sleeves catching sun like blade edges. Their courtship arcs from cicada-hum hamlet to lantern-slick soirées in Tokyo, every stolen glance a brushstroke on the parchment of her awakening. When the naïf poses the perennial ache—why breathe?—he answers with libertine hauteur: to flutter unchained. The maxim becomes a stiletto; he vanishes, leaving her clutching absence amid camellia petals. Water summons her: moonlit river, stones in pocket, hem sodden with shame. Yet the current rejects her exit; an old ferryman drifts by, oar clacking like a metronome for second chances. Convalescence among charcoal burners follows—faces seared by ember-glow, stories scarred by war tax. Months later, Yanagisawa reappears—gaunt, hat in hand, the city’s polish scuffed by remorse. Their final exchange, framed by torii gate and falling ginkgo, is no reconciliation but a quiet archaeology of wounds, the camera lingering on Teruko’s eyes reflecting both horizon and hurt, refusing closure yet forging something fiercer: self-possession.
Synopsis
Teruko, a country girl, falls in love with the aristocrat Yanagisawa. When she once asks him what the meaning of life is, he responds that it is to live freely. Unfortunately, he does that by abandoning her. Teruko tries to commit suicide, but luckily is saved. Yanagisawa returns and apologizes to her.
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