One of Seijun Suzuki’s most subdued and traditional crime films, Kemono no nemuri (US: The Sleeping Beast Within) tells that quintessential film noir tale of an ordinary family man who unknowingly gets mixed up with the criminal underground, but Suzuki twists the formula by leaving viewers in the dark, exposing us only to the worried daughter’s point of view so we can share in her confusion. When her father Junpei (Shinsuke Ashida) disappears, Keiko Ueke (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) teams up with local reporter Shotaro Kasei (Hiroyuki Nagato) to search for him, tracing his whereabouts, interviewing contacts, soon learning that he had quit his job days earlier. When Junpei finally returns home offering a superficial excuse, Keiko’s thrilled to see him, but Shotaro becomes even more suspicious so continues his own investigation until he uncovers Junpei’s connections to an illegal smuggling enterprise. While released 15 years after the conclusion of World War II, the film still backgrounds the often-unseemly reconstruction efforts and foregrounds the characters’ postwar anxiety that bursts forth in reluctant emotions, such as the beautifully crafted scene in which Keiko finally confronts her father while her mother listens at the door. The camera is quite tame for a Suzuki film, but the master still adds his creative touches, such as panning, trailing, and frequent superimposition of visual flashbacks while their narrators remain in the present on the lower part of the screen.