When this movie begins with a poor sweet-potato seller collapsing in the house of a rich industrialist, and his self-obsessed family acting their worst around him, you can't help but think this is going to be a Japanese version of BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING. Indeed, for a long time it proceeds that way, and it's clear that Keisuke Kinoshita had begun his movie with Renoir's as a ground plan. However, his center-of-the-storm is Chishu Ryu, not that marvelous monster Michel Simon, so in the end the story flows differently. Story is, after all, about how characters behave and change in situations, and this movie's Christ-figure is nothing at all like Renoir's.
Visually, this movie is striking for the set design and colors. It begins with subdued colors, taupes and beiges and grey-painted walls, all shot head-on so that everything is neat and symmetric and dead. As the movie proceeds and actual emotions begin to make themselves felt, pinks begin to intrude and shapes comes to disturb that dead symmetry. The story is rarely surprising, but it is well performed and always wonderfully watchable.