Projected by the Northwest Chicago Film Society
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Admission: $5
A HEN IN THE WIND
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1948
Post-war strife weighs heavily on impoverished dress-maker Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka), who eventually prostitutes herself to pay for her son’s medical care. The much-anticipated demobilization of Tokiko’s husband becomes a dangerous balancing act as she attempts to restore her life while keeping this potentially devastating secret. Long dismissed as an uncharacteristically angry and violent film from Japan’s most serene auteur (not least by the director himself), A Hen in the Wind now looks like a masterful melodrama that challenges viewers with a radical and insistent brand of empathy. It’s true that it’s starker than most Ozu films–the domestic dysfunction doesn’t have to be teased out or assembled from an accumulation of details–but this up-front righteousness is refreshing. That such an urgent social tract emerged from a culture whose entire discourse was so closely regulated by the American occupation is doubly remarkable. In Japanese with English subtitles. (KW)
84 min. • Shôchiku Eiga • 35mm from Janus Films
Cartoon: “The Cat Came Back” (Cordell Barker, 1988) – 35mm – 7 min
