"Ozu brilliantly and honestly confronts the postwar moment" (Joan Mellon) in this tragedy of a destitute woman, Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka), awaiting her husband's demobilization. When her son becomes ill, she takes the advice of a meddlesome neighbor and prostitutes herself to pay the hospital bill. On his return, the husband is irate; it is only when he visits a prostitute himself that he begins to understand what his wife has gone through. Ozu evinces an almost Mizoguchean focus on the oppressed woman before taking up the context that would become his treasured domain: the deterioration of the Japanese family, and the resilience of its individual members, under the onslaught of modern life.