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Home , Masayuki Mori (actor), Mikio Naruse

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When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

directed by

Review by Gary W. Tooze

Keiko (affectionately known as “Mama”) is an extremely attractive and gentle senior employee of a Ginza bar in Tokyo. Here women socialize as paid escorts for men to varying degrees of interaction. Keiko is respected and admired for her ability to separate her unsentimental “business” persona and avoid prostituting herself to the array of clients that proposition her. After her husband died in a truck accident 5 years hence she was forced into this occupation to help support her mother, excessively passive and financially desperate brother and his son struck with polio. The occupation of a hostess is honestly shown as a spiral of monetary compromising enticement, search for a supporting pecuniary marriage proposal and vicious circle of expenditure of expected fashion accoutrements to compete in the aggressive and ruthless world of her profession.

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Approaching her 30th birthday she despairingly comes to the realization of the inevitable future demise of her looks and therefore her income. With the persuasion of one of her clients she formulates a plan to have sponsors help her to open her own Ginza bar. However, the occupational hazards of her profession are fraught with surrounding corruption, deceit, her own health problems and suicide of a colleague. Her meager dreams are defeated even after she compromises and succumbs to the pratfalls of the most contemptuous aspect of her business. Defeated and proud she perseveres to continue her life, a struggle that is exposed as heartbreaking and a harsh jolt of reality when she again resiliently climbs the stairs of the Bar Carton each night. Naruse uses Keiko’s narration of the seasonal climate as a log of the passage of time as well as a metaphor of her mood expressing the “leaves falling” as her awareness of impending age and the “coldness of winter” as her despair. With virtually no close-up shots (intimacy) and almost exclusively interior camerawork (lonely) Naruse chronicled an homage to the resiliency of the female spirit. I was captivated after the first 20 minutes and viewed intently the struggles of everyday existence of this character. The film is both graceful and cold, balancing between the two with subtle strong intent. Unfamiliar with the inner working of the Ginza community I also felt educated after viewing it. I will seek out other Naruse films although I am only aware of one that is available on VHS, . Disappointingly, presently none of Mikio Naruse’s 89 films have made it to DVD. out of .

Film + VHS Details Credited cast overview: The hi-fi mono VHS of Naruse's 1960 "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs" can .... Keiko Yashiro be purchased from Amazon.com at this (I) .... Nobuhiko Fujisaki link: CLICK HERE. Reiko Dan .... Junko Inchihashi .... Kenichi Komatsu, the It is in Japanese and has clear white manager English subtitles below the 2.35:1 Daisuke Katô (I) .... Matsukichi Sekine letterboxed (in the original TOHOSCOPE Ganjiro Nakamura .... Goda format), black and white image. It is Eitarô Ozawa .... Minobe distributed by "World Artists Home Video". Keiko Awaji .... Yuri The quality is excellent.

Also Known As: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) Runtime: 111 Country: Language: Japanese Color: Black and White Certification: Portugal:M/12

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Last modified: July 12, 2002

http://207.136.67.23/film/reviews/wawats.htm 7/17/02