Utamaro and His Five Women (Kenji Mizoguchi; Japan, 1946)

Mizoguchi made films that seemed to come from the other side of the grave. He viewed human passions with the stately, detached sympathy of someone who has seen it all, and his cinematic style, unfurling with the loveliness of a succession of magnificent Japanese prints, was the most consistently transcendental of any film director. Utamaro and His Five Women is perhaps the closest he came to an autobiographical statement about the making of art. He took as his subject the great ukiyo-e (color print) artist Utamaro, who broke with the conventional nature-subjects of the eighteenth century to form a supple, popular style based on the lives of geisha houses and sensuality. Mizoguchi portrays Utamaro as so absorbed in the act of vision that he can do little but watch helplessly (if compassionately) the thrashings and destructive love affairs of the women who are his models.

• Written by Yoshikata Yoda. Photographed by Shigeto Miki. With Minosuke Bando, Kinuyo Tanaka, Kotaro Bando, Hiroko Kawasaki. (93 mins, In Japanese with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, From Janus Films/Criterion Collection)