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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
All Critics (14) | Top Critics (1) | Fresh (14) | Rotten (0) | DVD (2)
A new classic.
It's also elegantly shot and scored; all that's missing is a touch of humour.
A heartbreaker.
Sprint, don't walk, up those BFI steps to see it.
The new retrospective of Mikio Naruse at London's BFI Southbank will do much to restore the reputation of a neglected Japanese director, and this 1960 film is a heartbreaking study, to be compared with Mizoguchi's Life of Oharu.
Shot in luminous black and white cinemascope, this is an exquisitely understated study of the plight of a young woman in an unforgiving society.
The money-grubbing realities of late 1950s Tokyo make for riveting viewing in Naruse's naturalistic classic. These are no ordinary memories of a geisha.
Patience will be rewarded.
Lustrously photographed in monochrome by Masai Tamai, this is essentially a Tokyo twist on Nights of Cabiria (1957), with Mikio Naruse and Hideko Takamine replacing Fellina and Masina's kooky optimism with a fatalistic humanism.
Even a casual viewing of When a Woman Ascends the Stairs shows what a gifted humanist Naruse was.
Naruse creates an affecting scenario of modern Japanese society and the pitfalls a woman in such a patriarchal society must face.
The final close-up-featuring Keiko smiling in lieu of tears-might be frozen, framed, and subtitled "Lady Sings the Blues."
If you have seen it tell me you didn't have tears coming down throw this heartbraking film??? This classic is surely one of my top 30 and it's nothing short of neat and near perfect! I liked the way Hideko Takamine acts out her lines with such power and emotion. The style of our director is their with the way she films it, and she tends to make more use of shadows for more reason one can see while watching. I liked every aspect of production and my final suggestion is SEE IT! (I may make a bigger review some day)
Super Reviewer
this is my first experience of naruse and in fact his only film that's widely available in the u.s. this is a shame as i found it to be a masterpiece on the level of ozu or mizoguchi. it's interesting so many of their films revolve around female characters. meanwhile you'd be hard-pressed to find a single decent female character in most of kurosawa's work
a patient, emotional, and highly effective portrayal of the struggle of a virtuous woman in a not so virtuous world. the film features some of the great and familiar actors from this era of japanese cinema and just about every aspect of the film was performed well. the only real drawback was that the storyline with the main characters brother, a storyline i found myself very interested in, was the only storyline in the film not developed well. the main plot however was developed perfectly and the film gets its point across with beauty. overall an excellent film for any fan of good female leads or japanese cinema.
My first Naruse film and certainly wont be my last. He bridges the gap between Ozu's dissection of Japanese women of the time and Kurosawa's entertainment values. A true beauty of a film it is funny, moving but never sentimental. Despite some dark turns the film always keeps it's feet on the ground and never becomes too depressing. The editing is faster paced than some of his peers and it is to Naruse's credit. A wonderfully detailed and fantastically portrayed film with a dozen performances worth a mention as well as some of the most beautiful actresses ever. Simply stunning.
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