Kon Ichikawa's wondrous, richly detailed adaptation of the celebrated Tanizaki novel tells the story of four wealthy sisters in 1930s Osaka on the eve of the war that will change their world forever, and how family traditions are tested under the onslaught of modernism as the two younger sisters drift toward Western lifestyles. The film "is on fire with colors and textures -- the cherry blossoms of Kyoto in springtime, the rustling silks of the sisters' bright kimonos...Ichikawa is probably the foremost adapter of Japanese literary classics and he handles this material with astonishing grace and fluidity, not to mention an extraordinarily subtle satirical edge." (Seattle International Film Festival) "It's like a succession of evanescent revelations; the images are stylized and formal, yet the quick cutting melts them away. The venerable Ichikawa is doing what so many younger directors have claimed to be doing; he's making visual music." (Pauline Kael) Cosponsored with the History of Art Majors' Society in conjunction with their Johnson Museum exhibit, Performing Desire: Constructs of Feminine Beauty and Sexuality in Japanese Art, on view from March 31 - July 8.
1983, color, 2 hours 20 minutes, Japan