The Moon Has Risen

Kinuyo Tanaka's second film as a director follows a widowed father and his three daughters in Nara. The youngest, Setsuko, tries to arrange matches for her older sisters, and her well-meant interventions confuse matters every time. The screenplay is by Yasujiro Ozu, who wrote it in 1947, though the studio did not put it into production at the time. Eight years later Tanaka took the project on. The result carries Ozu's sense of family structure and Tanaka's own comic sensibility at once. Chishu Ryu plays the father, and as a presence familiar from Ozu's films he adds a further layer. Tanaka's direction does not imitate Ozu; the camera moves more and the pace is lighter. Tanaka was among the first women to direct in Japan. Who it's for: those who like Japanese studio cinema and light family comedy. Who it's not for: viewers looking for intense dramatic tension; the film stays gentle throughout.