A highpoint among postwar Japan’s jidaigeki films, Sansho the Bailiff is both one of Mizoguchi’s most accessible works and one of his most sublime.
A highpoint among postwar Japan’s jidaigeki films, Sansho the Bailiff is both one of Mizoguchi’s most accessible works and one of his most sublime (in the word’s original sense as an overwhelming meeting of beauty and terror). The narrative impassively follows two families caught up in sweeping cycles of rise and fall, betrayal and resignation, as Mizoguchi’s tracking shots both entrance with their cinematic majesty and shock with the dark surprises they reveal. Tanaka gives one of the most haunting performances of her career as a mother separated from her children by the cruel tides of fate. Tanaka’s uncanny ability to embody suffering now sees her transformed into an aged woman shaped by the toll of waiting and hoping for the impossible. Mizoguchi’s elegy to human fortitude can also be taken as a stinging critique of the lasting physical and psychological devastation wrought by the militaristic nationalism that led to Japan’s actions in the Second World War.
$10 / $8 non-Harvard students and seniors / Harvard students free
Phone: (617) 496-3211
Email: bgravely@fas.harvard.edu
2023/01/30 - 2023/01/30
Harvard Film Archive
Harvard Film Archive Cinematheque, Cambridge, MA 02138
Although parking in Cambridge is difficult (most of the surrounding streets have restricted parking for Cambridge residents only), metered parking on Broadway and Harvard Streets, as well as the rest of Harvard Square, is free after 8pm. Film-goers are encouraged to use public transportation, particularly the MBTA Red Line.
Film has English subtitles.