"Mikio Naruse's last film prior to his death in 1969 shows with elegiac refinement the effects of a tragic automobile accident on the intimate lives of the survivors. The pregnant young wife of the dead man finds herself without the courage or the money to have her baby and returns to the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido to work for relatives as a maid at their inn. The young man who caused the accident finds his marriage and career prospects ruined, although he is not guilty of any crime. Much to their mutual discomfort, these two people find themselves by chance in the same small town in Hokkaido, where the man's company transfers him to avoid further adverse publicity. Gradually they fall in love, but the burden of the past is too heavy to allow them to stay together." --Audie Bock