Kenji Mizoguchi is generally recognised as one of the masters of the cinema. In France he is a prize pet in the Cahiers menagerie. Over here his Ugetsu Monogatari took fourth place (with Greed) in the Sight and Sound critics’ poll [of 1962]. At the same time only one of Mizoguchi’s films has been distributed commercially in this country: Street of Shame. Not unpredictably, this sensitive study of geisha life was billed as a second feature to a nudist travelogue and played for a roaring six months. Now, six years after Mizoguchi’s death, we may be allowed a more serious opportunity to appraise his talent since Ugetsu, one of the last and possibly the greatest of his eighty-eight films, is finally being shown commercially in London.
