Ugetsu (Ugetsu monogatari/Japan) | Click here to watch
(96 min; 1953; b/w; Japanese with English subtitles)
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Recipient of Top 10 Film Award for Best Film, Cahiers du Cinéma, 1959; Mainichi Film Concours 1954 awards for Best Art Direction & Best Sound Recording; Pasinetti Award & Silver Lion, Venice Film Festival 1953
Kenji Mizoguchi’s breakthrough film that brought him international attention and an Oscar nomination. The film is a stunning period film set in the war torn 16th century Japan. A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars - two brothers, one consumed by greed, the other by envy. In a time when the land is savaged by marauding armies, they risk their families and their lives to pursue their obsessions. The heroes are rough-hewn and consumed by ambition, but the film style is elegant and mysterious.
