A real shame this isn't as recognized as a classic of Japanese melodrama and post-war cinema. This re-watch revealed several aspects that I can't say I picked up on my first watch years ago.
Perhaps principally, Matsuyama, as a writer, wrote many great scripts for a variety of filmmakers prior to making this work, perhaps most notably Kobayashi's The Human Condition trilogy and Daughters, Wives and a Mother for Naruse, and the influence of both the subject matters that were covered in those films, as well as the director's approaches, can be seen and felt in this work. Matsuyama's penchant for melodrama and emotional resonance, as well as the connection of Takamine (perhaps a career best performance?), can be seen as an influence from Naruse, while the more realist settings and lingering effects of trauma and the aftermath of the war would come from Kobayashi. It's a clashing that many a filmmaker has struggled to connect, reality to the overwrought. It's difficult to wield such emotional/explosive performances and contain them within a world that's not just as designed, for lack of a better word.
Much of the film, especially in its first third or so, demonstrates Matsuyama's influence from silent cinema as well. The score sounds like something Chaplin would've used in A Woman of Paris or something. It's simplicity in images, of two people using sign-language to communicate, their faces effectively saying everything we need to understand. It's in this early part of the film that the film shines brightest because of it's simplicity and effectiveness at getting us onboard with the central couple without succumbing to trite narrative beats, more often than not subverting said beats through it's use of framing and structure. But it's also important to note just how much of this relies on the the performances of the central couple as well (I came back to writing this after everything else). This wouldn't work if the central couple were not portrayed by as skilled actors as Takamine or Kobayashi. While this is certainly Takamine's show and she gets arguably the more showy role here, it's important to also not fail to notice just how much Kobayashi does with a silent role here. His scene on the train when he goes after Takamine and his signed words to her, when he's on the brink of tears - no words, just devastation (which could be said of many moments in the film to be honest).
But the trick I think Matsuyama managed to do here is allowing in acknowledging and allowing us as an audience in on the "happiness" that the central couple are allowed to have. It's exaggerated for the sake of allowing this couple some sense of uplift from what could have very easily been misery-porn. I think of the quick turn-around that results from the couple's first child, which, if played in a realist context, would have been an unbearable decision that could have sunk the film as a whole, but allowing as the audience to access these bigger emotional trauma in shorter bursts makes the loss (and eventual recovery) more manageable.
It's also worth noting just how the film is presented from a clear working-class perspective throughout. The central couple, as well as Takamine's mother, are never not in need of money. There are scenes throughout of the couple working together or arguing over funds. In one of the more insightful scenes, Takamine's mother goes to a pawn shop in order to sell some trinkets so that the couple can stay afloat. Even as the years move on and people get older, the central family are never able to escape from living near the poverty line no matter how much they work. It also touches upon a kind of resentment that can breed within children that is rarely touched upon in films. Takamine and Kobayashi's child is ashamed not just of his parent's deafness but from their lower class - his violence is born from being unable to cope with both and an inability to articulate this within himself. It's only when he gets older that he begins to understand their struggle and learns to assist in the fight to stay afloat and confront the oppression that keeps his parents down.
