A stunning introduction to the work of the great, great Japanese filmmaker, Kenji Mizoguchi.

“Few artists in any medium have achieved such mastery of technique, mastery of experience, mastery of self (three aspects of the same process). It is the greatest movie I have ever seen.” 

        —  Robin Wood 

When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile. His wife and children are left to fend for themselves and are eventually wrenched apart by vicious slave traders. “The humanism in Mizoguchi and the Shakespearean sweep of  time and society are akin to Renoir’s vision of life’s theater. Their language was the same: the way camera movements expanded consequence;  spatial connections that spoke to likeness; and the suffering. Mizoguchi’s work of the fifties is the great tragic moment of cinema… This is a perfect film, one in which we never notice execution or exactness.” —  David Thomson (1954, 124 min, in Japanese w/English subtitles)

Thursday, December 5, 7:00 PM