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Director Kenji Mizoguchi had been making films for roughly 15 years before beginning to find his voice in the late 1930s with films like this stark portrayal of a young woman living in a male cul-de-sac, now cited by Japanese critics as a landmark in the introduction of realism into Japanese films. Set in Osaka, well-known to the Japanese for its obssession with commerce, the film stars Isuzu Yamada as Ayako Murai, an operator at a small telephone company, who is engaged to Susumu Nishimura (Kensaku Hara), a co-worker who is strangely unconcerned that she must continually fend off the advances of her wealthy boss, Sonosuke Asai (Benkei Shiganoya). At home, her querulous, alcoholic father has incurred a huge debt which threatens to drive the family into bankruptcy, and after a fierce argument with Ayako, he throws her out of the house. With nowhere else to turn, she agrees to become Asai's mistress, and he sets her up in an expensive apartment. Although she pays off her father's debt and finances her brother's schooling, effectively supporting her entire family, they hypocritically ostracize her for what she has become. Yamada is riveting in this devastating study of men's exploitation of women. The director's typically evocative compositions frequently frame Ayako in close-up, emphasizing the virtual imprisonment.

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