Saturday | October 16, 1999 7:00 pm

A Story of Floating Weeds
(Ukigusa Monogatari)

Live Musical Accompaniment
Screening on Film

Directed by Yasujiro Ozu.
With Takeshi Sakamoto, Choko Iida, Hideo Mitsui .
Japan, 1934, 16mm, black & white, silent, 89 min.

This moody, lyrical work is loosely based on an American silent called The Barker. Infinitely superior to its model, it is the story of the leader of a small group of traveling players who returns to a small town and meets his son, the product of a distant affair. Ozu transforms the slightly melodramatic tale into an atmospheric and intense drama. Celebrated Japanese film historian Donald Richie has called this film, "the first of those eight-reel universes in which everything takes on a consistency greater than life: in short, a work of art."