Thursday, 30 July 2015

The bar breaks them all eventually

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)

Directed by Mikio Naruse this film stars Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Reiko Dan and Tatsuya Nakadai. A widow close to turning 30 works as a hostess in a bar and tries to decide between opening her own bar or finding a husband.

Like many of Naruse's films this is about a woman despite being more mature and level headed than her colleagues still ends up trapped and crushed by her profession. All of the characters are well created and the slow break down of the protagonist is really excellently done. While this is pretty much in the same area as all the other Naruse films I have seen it is still a thoughtful watch.


4/5

No comments:

Post a Comment