On its release, She and He was compared by western critics to the films of Antonioni, and indeed Susumu Hani enters similar thematic territory in telling of a middle-class woman's sudden realization of the world around her, and the degree to which she is alienated from it. Naoko (Sachiko Hidari) lives comfortably with her husband (Eiji Okada), a young executive on the rise, in a sterile Tokyo suburb; in a marriage drained of passion, they have virtually become "She" and "He." Among a colony of ragpickers living just outside their housing development, Naoko recognizes a former classmate of her husband's. She befriends him and his ward, a blind little girl, but her husband, in his clumsy efforts to infuse middle-class morality on the ragman, crushes the friendship. She is left alone with He. Hani, a former documentary filmmaker (whose first two features, Bad Boys and A Full Life, were shown in July) infuses an elliptical narrative with a sense of authenticity drawn from on-location shooting and a cast of both professional and non-professional actors: Ikona, the ragpicker, is portrayed by a spindly painter in his first acting role; the blind girl, by a blind girl. Sachiko Hidari won the Best Actress award at the 1964 Berlin Film Festival for her altogether contemporary portrayal of a woman driven mad by so-called "happiness."