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7.1/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 7.1/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Apart from You remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have the patience for black-and-white dramas that care more about a lingering look than a plot twist, you should watch Apart from You. But if you need a film to tell you exactly how to feel, or if you get twitchy during scenes where 'nothing' seems to be happening, stay far away. This isn't a thriller.
Mikio Naruse had this way of filming people that makes you feel like you are spying on their kitchen table. It isn't polished, and honestly, some of the transitions are a bit clunky compared to his later work. But the raw feeling of the thing? It hits hard.
The story focuses on these two geishas, and their dynamic feels surprisingly modern. There is this one scene where they are just sitting there, and the camera doesn't cut away when you think it should. It keeps rolling, and you start to notice the small things—a twitch of an eye, a hand folding a cloth a little too tightly. It’s painfully honest.
I kept thinking about Jinsei no kazaguruma while watching this. Both films have that same sense of people being trapped in boxes they built for themselves. It makes you want to reach into the screen and shake them, but you can’t.
It’s not a perfect movie. Sometimes the pacing just hits a wall. But then you get a performance from the leads that makes you forget all that technical stuff. It’s human. And yeah, it’s a bit sad, but not in that manipulative, tear-jerker way. It’s just the kind of sad that feels like waking up on a Tuesday morning and realizing your life isn't quite where you wanted it to be.
Honestly, it’s much better than a lot of the stuff coming out of the same era like Die Pagode, which feels so stiff by comparison. Naruse knew that life is mostly just small talk and big, unspoken regrets. He captured that better than anyone.