Portrait of Madame Yuki

Young Hamako takes a job as a servant in the house of a noblewoman. The house is large, the things in it are expensive, everything appears to be in order. She soon understands that Yuki is unhappy: her husband treats her badly and she cannot leave him all the same. Hamako watches it from outside and can do nothing. Kenji Mizoguchi's film also tells the coming apart of the old upper class in postwar Japan: the title remains, the money runs out. Michiyo Kogure plays Yuki. As in all of Mizoguchi's films the camera stands back and watches scenes without cutting. The telling does not blame the woman, but it does not avoid showing that she makes no choice.