Description:
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour - a delicate, devastating study of Keiko (the heartbreaking Takamine Hideko), a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern postwar Ginza district, who entertains businessmen after work. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs shows the largely unsung yet widely beloved master Naruse at his most socially exacting and profoundly emotional.
Special Features:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Audio commentary by Japanese film scholar Donald Richie
- New video interview with Tatsuya Nakadai
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Booklet with essays by Audie Bock, Catherine Russell and Phillip Lopate