Abstract
Russell sees Naruse's body of work as being preoccupied with women - working women, wives, mothers, mistresses, daughters and geisha - and their struggles against material hardship and social injustice, amidst emotional strife, in the modern world. For scholars of Japan who might not be interested in motion pictures, Russell makes a convincing argument that Naruse's films are worth watching and studying because they provide an important and overlooked ethnographic window into the everyday lives of mid-twentieth-century Japanese women.