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Contains mild sex references
An attractive widow is forced to make a living as a bar hostess in this Japanese classic, finally released in the UK. Made in 1960, it's an involving portrait of a strong woman, Keiko, who is weighing up her options - open her own bar or find a husband? Each choice has its pitfalls in this leisurely but rewarding black and white melodrama, which gives a fascinating insight into the Tokyo of decades gone by.
You wouldn't necessarily expect a male Japanese director working in the sixties to make a film about female oppression, but this was one of Naruse's most common themes. The story of When A Woman... is reminiscent of a Jane Austen novel: women are confined by circumstance, mostly unable to earn an respectable living without a husband. In Naruse's Tokyo, they're forcibly eroticised by a patricarchal society and then damned by it for submitting. Keiko doesn't sleep with customers: she just drinks and flirts with them, but it's enough to put most men off proposing.
"PATIENCE WILL BE REWARDED"
This closely follows her daily life as she entertains clients, spends time with her colleagues, discusses potential business plans with her advisors, and quietly mourns for her dead husband. There's gentle comedy courtesy of one of the younger, looser hostesses, and a few cracking back-handed compliments ("I'd like to marry someone like you," Keiko tells a client. "Handsome men are conceited"). Modern audiences may find the pace slow, but patience will be rewarded as the drama escalates towards the film's moving finale.
In Japanese with English subtitles
When A Woman Ascends The Stairs is out in the UK on 29th June
