The Lady of Musashino

In post-war Japan, Michiko is stuck inside a marriage without affection. She confides in Tsutomu, her younger cousin, and the two grow close but decide not to take it further. Tsutomu attaches himself instead to Tomiko, who is also involved with Michiko’s husband. When Michiko realises her husband has abandoned her, she decides to take her fate into her own hands. Kenji Mizoguchi adapted Shohei Ooka’s novel, and Toho released the film on 14 September 1951. How little room a male-dominated order leaves women, and the collision between tradition and the modern, are the subjects Mizoguchi kept returning to, and here the neon of Tokyo does the visual work of that collision. Kinuyo Tanaka plays Michiko.