Film – Sansho the Bailiff, 70th Anniversary Screening

70th Anniversary—35mm Presentation. Set in the late Heian period, Mizoguchi’s devastating jidaigeki (period drama) recounts the tragic separation of a reputable family under wretched circumstances when a virtuous governor is banished to a far-off land by a feudal lord. As misfortune piles upon the children and wife (Kinuyo Tanaka), who are ripped apart from each other and sold into slavery, Sansho depicts a world woven in despair and futility—one where the moral code of man is without mercy. Shot by master cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa and informed by Mizoguchi’s Buddhist principles, Sansho the Bailiff is a monumental work of Japanese cinema.