Kinuyo Tanaka is an understated tragedian in keeping with this film of enormous losses treated almost casually, a film of non-incident laced with much incidental humor. The story of a mother trying to make a go of the family dry-cleaning business following the death of her husband is told through the eyes of her adoring teenage daughter. Set in the homes and streets of a Tokyo suburb, this is slice-of-life, and like all of Naruse's best work, eludes both climax and closure. The passing of time, with its untimely deaths, is only insinuated in dialog; when the mother weeps, she goes outside to do so, in long shot. But Tanaka, in her internalized fashion, reveals the price of obedience to the stiff upper lip, or its Japanese variation-as in the mother's subtle detachment toward the youngest daughter. Several allusions to the West-including the musical theme and a running gag with a young baker and his specialty, "Picasso bread"-are reminiscent of the early Ozu. A perennial favorite in Japan, Mother was the first Japanese film to be released in Europe, where it was inevitably compared with the neorealist works that had recently emerged.