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

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September 30–October 10, 2005

Mikio Naruse:
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October 18–November 3

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November 9–December 9

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November 10–24

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November 11

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November 23

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