A Wanderer's Notebook

A Wanderer's Notebook (放浪記, Hōrōki), also titled Her Lonely Lane, is a 1962 Japanese drama film directed by Mikio Naruse starring Hideko Takamine.^[1][2][3] It is based on the autobiographical book Diary of a Vagabond by Fumiko Hayashi and its stage adaptation by Kazuo Kikuta.^[4]

A Wanderer's Notebook
Directed by	Mikio Naruse
Screenplay by	Toshirō Ide Sumie Tanaka
Based on	Diary of a Vagabond by Fumiko Hayashi Hōrōki (play) by Kazuo Kikuta
Produced by	Sanezumi Fujimoto Mikio Naruse Tadahiro Teramoto
Starring	Hideko Takamine Akira Takarada Daisuke Katō Kinuyo Tanaka
Cinematography	Jun Yasumoto
Edited by	Hideshi Ohi
Music by	Yūji Koseki
Production company	Toho
Distributed by	Toho
Release date	29 September 1962 (1962-09-29) (Japan)[1][2]
Running time	123 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Plot

Fumiko Hayashi is a young woman who cannot find a decent job and has been dumped by her boyfriend; she writes on the side. Fumiko's friends tell her that her writing about her life in poverty is excellent and impressive, but no publishing company will buy her autobiographic novel. She continues working as a bar girl and a factory worker and gets together with another aspiring writer, Fukuchi, who has also been struggling to sell his work. Despite the fact that she does all she can for him and cares for him while he suffers from tuberculosis, he abuses her verbally and eventually physically. She walks out of him, returns, and then walks out again. Yasuoka, a warm-hearted and hard-working man, helps Fumiko in every way possible and asks for her hand, but she rejects his proposal—to Fumiko, Yasuoka is more of a friend than a lover. After these struggles, the film ends with her literary success.

Cast

• Hideko Takamine as Fumiko Hayashi
• Akira Takarada as Fukuchi
• Daisuke Katō as Yasuoka
• Tatsuo Endō as Chief editor
• Kinuyo Tanaka as Kishi, Fumiko's mother

Legacy

A Wanderer's Notebook was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1985^[5] and at the Harvard Film Archive in 2005^[6] as part of their retrospectives on Mikio Naruse.

References

1. "放浪記 (Hōrōki)". Kinema Junpo (in Japanese). Retrieved 27 December 2020.
2. "放浪記 (Hōrōki)". Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese). Retrieved 3 December 2021.
3. "放浪記 (Hōrōki)". Kotobank (in Japanese). Retrieved 2 November 2019.
4. Russell, Catherine (2008). The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Women and Japanese Modernity. Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. 361. ISBN 978-0-8223-4290-8.
5. "Mikio Naruse: A Master of the Japanese Cinema Opens at MoMA September 23" (PDF). Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 20 July 2023.
6. "A Wanderer's Notebook". Harvard Film Archive. Retrieved 20 July 2023.

External links

• Uhlich Keith. "Review: A Wanderer’s Notebook." Slant Magazine, 1 March 2006.
• A Wanderer's Notebook at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)
• A Wanderer's Notebook at IMDb
• A Wanderer's Notebook at Rotten Tomatoes
• A Wanderer's Notebook on Mubi

Further reading

• Ericson, Joan E. (1997). "Diary of a Vagabond". Be a Woman: Hayashi Fumiko and Modern Japanese Women's Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 9780824818845.