Friday | February 24, 2023 7:00 pm

Sunday | February 26, 2023 3:00 pm

Mother
(Okaasan)

Screening on Film

Directed by Mikio Naruse.
With Kyoko Kagawa, Eiji Okada, Kinuyo Tanaka.
Japan, 1952, 35mm, black & white, 98 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: The Japan Foundation

A perennial favorite of Japanese cinema, Mother is also a somewhat uncharacteristic work for Mikio Naruse, one of the few humorous films in an oeuvre better known for dark melodrama. Tanaka stars as a recent widow with three children struggling to manage her husband’s dry-cleaning business. While seemingly told from the point of view of her eldest daughter, Mother ultimately centers upon Tanaka in an unabashedly sentimental hymn to maternal self-sacrifice and dedication. Nevertheless, a certain edge becomes evident as Tanaka’s self-deprecation takes on an unsettling, obsessive quality.

January 20 – February 26, 2023

Kinuyo Tanaka—Actress, Director, Pioneer

September 30–October 10, 2005

Mikio Naruse:
A Centennial Tribute

September 29–December 1

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

November 9–December 9

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

November 10–24

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

November 23

Wings of a Serf

a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

November 25

Le Dépays + Sans soleil

Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

December 12

Carol for Another Christmas

December 13–16

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy