The businessman Ogata Shingo (Sô Yamamura) works with his son Shuichi (Ken Uehara), who is his secretary, and they live together in the suburb with their wives Yasuko (Teruko Nagaoka) and Kikuko (Setsuko Hara) respectively. Shuichi has a love affair and has a loveless marriage with Kikuko. Yasuko has dedicated her entire life to her family but Shingo married her only because her older sister had died. Kikuko is the pride and joy of Shingo and they are close to each other.
Out of the blue, Shingo and Yasuko's daughter Fusako (Chieko Nakakita) leaves her husband and arrives at Shingo's home with her two children. Shingo investigates and finds the address of Shuichi's lover. Meanwhile Kikuko goes to the hospital and Shingo learns that she was pregnant but decided to abort her child.
"Yama no oto" is a movie about forbidden love based on the novel of Yasumari Kawabata and directed by Mikio Naruse that uses the favorite theme of Ozu – the family drama - and similar locations. The story is based on the patriarch Shingo, a man that has married his wife without loving her but also respected her along their lives. He feels a forbidden love with his sister-in-law Kikuko, a woman that is apparently submissive working as a servant at home, but strong enough to abort her child to avoid keeping her loveless marriage with her husband. Fusako is Shingo's estranged daughter that is also strong enough to leave her husband and move with her children to her parents' home. This women behavior is unusual in Japanese movies from these years. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "O Som da Montanha" ("The Sound of the Mountain")
