With this film, the director shifted gears yet again to make one of the most anomalous films in his oeuvre. He did not fare any better with the critics, and he himself declared it to be a failure. . .
The film's protagonist Goro periodically pauses while a dark filter drops like a veil over the image and he speaks his inner thoughts in voice-over. . . The device is not terribly effective. . .
A bigger part of the problem with Avalanche is its speechiness. The voice-over monologues are only one element of a script that places an enormous emphasis on spoken language. Moreover, the editing style is remarkably static. . . In one of the film's key scenes, Goro argues with his father, both of them articulating their positions while standing facing each other in a Western-furnished room. Using conventional reverse-angle cutting and a few camera movements as the men move around the room, this four-and-a-half minute scene fails to convey the emotional tension of a conversation in which the son tells his father that he wants to end his marriage. . . .Much too harsh.
The blocking of the actors is stagy and there is lots of talk. On first view I thought it was a Japanese equivalent to those popular stage adaptations with Important Themes so beloved by American movie critics of the late-1930s. (Holiday [1938] being by far the best of the group.) It is not. The movie is based on a popular serial-novel and the screenplay was written by Naruse in collaboration with Tomoyoshi Murayama, a well-known Marxist intellectual. (Whose deep understanding of Fascist and soon-to-be-annihilated Japan can be pretty much summed up by the song "Kids" from Bye Bye Birdie.) More important, Nadare (Avalanche) could never work anywhere but within 5 or 6 feet of a movie camera. All the beauty of this strangely brief masterpiece is contained in the medium-shots and close-ups of the very human cast, and most of that beauty resides in the face and body and voice and movements of Noboru Kiritachi, as the ignored wife. The sexual obsession that the Empty Suit husband/son has for Yayoi (Ranko Edogawa) is perfectly believable. But one who believes that Empty Suit husband/son cannot feel love or physical desire for Kiritachi is one who has lost his marbles. She is among the most heartbreakingly beautiful actresses in all cinema and the great Naruse -- who must've fallen in love with her as his marriage to Sachiko Chiba fell apart -- photographs her with reverence. He allows us to comfort ourselves in the beautiful light of her nature.
Nadare (1937) also sports some of the most astonishing hats and hairstyles of the still (in Japan) Deco Thirties.
