Two more films in the selection for 2022 focus on women in film. First up is a newly restored classic from Japan directed by one of that nation’s few women film-makers to work in the classical era of Japanese film-making alongside Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu.
THE MOON HAS RISEN (Japan, 1955)
Tanaka Kinuyo was a leading actress who appeared in a number of Mizoguchi’s greatest films including The Life of Oharu and Sansho the Bailiff. She acted for Naruse, Gosho. Kinoshita and many others. Between 1953 and 1962 she directed six films for a number of Japan’s major studios as well as continuing her acting career. All six have now been restored and are being released around the world. At Cannes in 2021 The Moon Has Risen was given prominent attention as a selection in the Cannes Classics program.
In this her second feature, co-written by Yasujirō Ozu, she casts the master’s favourite Chishū Ryū as a father living in a temple in Nara watching and advising his three daughters as they pursue and come to terms with their quests for love.
“Steering clear of Ozu’s trademark tatami mat view and preference for direct to camera speech, Tanaka’s lensing is shyer and avoids faces altogether to focus on the physical.”
-H Hayley Scanlon
Introduced by Kiki Fung, Critic, Curator, Programmer Hong Kong International Film Festival
CATCH A GLIMPSE OF DIRECTOR KINUYO TANAKA AT WORK IN THE OFFICIAL TRAILER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRVz_VWbBJU
To read Jane Mills superb program notes on Tanaka and The Moon Has Risen CLICK HERE
To make a booking (there are two screenings) on the Ritz website CLICK HERE
THE GODDESS (China, 1934)
China continued to make silent films well into the 30s and this is one of the landmarks of both silent and Chinese cinema. It was the first film made by Wu Yonggang and it starred the legendary Ruan Lingyu. Sight and Sound has called it one of the most powerful silent films of all time.
Set in Shanghai, an unnamed woman must take up prostitution in order to support her son. Avoiding detection from the police, she accepts the protection of a criminal boss whose habitual gambling and violent personality end up causing her further problems.
The legendary Ruan Lingyu, sometimes called the Greta Garbo of Chinese cinema, was the biggest star in Shanghai cinema during the 1930s and here, produces a luminous performance as the mother forced into prostitution.
“Ruan’s performance is so heartrendingly pure that the film is almost unbearable to watch…this great performer lends weight to the argument the purest films came out in the silent era.”
- Jeffrey M Anderson
“The kind of film that demands a rewriting of the film history books…Free of moralism and melodrama, expressively composed and lit and very naturalistically acted, this is a film of startling modernity.”
- Tony Rayns, Time Out Film Guide
Introduced by Susan Potter, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Department of Art History, University of Sydney
WATCH THE ORIGINAL 1934 TRAILER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_P4LWvyXrk
In the superb set of program notes compiled by Janice Tong for the Cinema Reborn website there is a section devoted to Ruan’s life and her sadly short career. Her concluding paras tell much of the impact she had on Chinese society: “On March 14th, 300,000 people attended Ruan Lingyu's funeral procession that spanned over 3 miles (4.8 km). The New York Times reported it as “the most spectacular funeral of the century”. What a pity they were paying tribute to her death.
Perhaps it is apt that we can now readily remember Ruan, her fragility and strength as well as her struggles, with the anniversary of her death falling on International Woman’s Day (coined in the 70s) March 8th.”
To make a booking on the Ritz website (one screening only) CLICK HERE
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The full Cinema Reborn 2022 Program is now listed on the Ritz website CLICK HERE
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