Sasame-yuki (Fine Snow)(Hosone yuki)(The Makioka Sisters) (1983)

It is Osaka in 1938. Yukiko(Sayuri Yoshinaga) is inquiring about the state of the money left to her by her late parents which her older sister Sachiko(Yoshiko Sakuma) insists was meant to be her dowry. The youngest sister Taeko(Yuko Kotegawa) has similar concerns but is doing quite well with her doll business. Then, Tsuruko(Keiko Kishi), the eldest sister, arrives to inform them that Yukiko's latest suitor is no good since apparently his mother is mentally unwell. At least, Teinosuke(Koji Ishizaka), Sachiko's husband, likes the way she eats. All of that having been settled, the family repairs outside to look at the cherry blossoms. Directed by Kon Ichikawa, "The Makioka Sisters" is an engaging, if overlong, chamber piece. To be fair, after at least two or three endings, everything clicks together with the last scene, encapsulating all that has gone before. This is set in a heremetically sealed world where the cracks are starting to show, not only with Taeko's modern ways in contrast to Yukiko's traditional manners, but also with the advent of several technologies including photography, telephones, airplanes and the radio that are meant to bring people closer together but are instead separating them even further, with the family suffering as a result. Then there is war which is the greatest harbinger of change, whose horrors are kept at a distance(more on this later) but whose effect is being felt through shortages. It also probably explains why it is so hard to find Yukiko a match, as most of the potential partners are in their 40's. And what does it say about a man at that age who has not married yet in a culture that so values marriage?