Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1960 • Japan
Starring Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Reiko Dan
WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse’s finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko (played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine), who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo’s very modern postwar Ginza district, who entertains businessmen after work. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS shows the largely unsung yet widely beloved master Naruse at his most socially exacting and profoundly emotional.
Up Next in Directed by Mikio Naruse
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Floating Clouds
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1955 • Japan
Starring Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Mariko Okada“Short is the life of flowers, infinite their sorrows . . .” Director Mikio Naruse’s most famous film in Japan is a haunting portrait of obsessive love in a ruined world. Set amid the bombed-out landsca...
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Flunky, Work Hard
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1931 • Japan
Starring Isamu Yamaguchi, Tomoko Naniwa, Seiichi KatoMikio Naruse’s earliest available film, FLUNKY, WORK HARD is the rare work by the director not to center around female characters. It is a charming, breezy short concerning an impoverished insurance sal...
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No Blood Relation
Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1932 • Japan
Starring Shinyo Nara, Yukiko Tsukuba, Hisako KojimaIn NO BLOOD RELATION, a gripping early example of Mikio Naruse’s cinematic boldness, featuring a screenplay by Yasujiro Ozu’s famed collaborator Kogo Noda, an actress returns to Tokyo after a successful s...
