When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

The Criterion Collection's superb DVD release of When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is cause for celebration, since it will introduce a lot of cinephiles to the brilliance of Japanese director Mikio Naruse. As film scholar Donald Richie observes in the DVD's feature-length audio commentary, Naruse is lesser known than such notable contemporaries as Kenji Mizuguchi and Yasujiro Ozu, but equally deserving of inclusion among the pantheon of great Japanese filmmakers. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) gracefully tells the story of a 30-year-old widow named Keiko (Hideko Takamine) who's slipping into debt and growing more and more desperate about her prospects for a financially secure future. Like many women in her situation, she has two options: marry a supportive husband (if she can find one) or struggle for independence as a hostess in one of the countless bars that line the streets of Tokyo's Ginza district, where businessmen regularly troll for mistresses. With a dramatic delicacy that matches the American melodramas of Douglas Sirk, Naruse deftly demonstrates how Japanese women faced daunting odds of survival in post-war, male-dominated Japanese society, while Takamine (who had appeared in 17 previous films by Naruse) gives a heartbreaking performance that's note perfect from start to finish. A painfully honest film about hope and disappointment, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is presented with a beautiful transfer (marred only by a few instances of "density mottling," or slight variations of image quality in the original negative) coupled with a variety of outstanding extra features, including the aforementioned commentary, a 2005 interview with costar Tatsuya Nakadai, and a splendid booklet of essays on the film by critics Phillip Lopate and Catherine Russell, Japanese film historian Audie Bock, and star Takamine. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (J. Shannon)