Late Chrysanthemums

Suffused with the sense of autumnal melancholy and nostalgia that its title suggests, LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS is one of director Mikio Naruse’s most perfectly realized works. In a rare starring role, the great Haruko Sugimura (FLOATING WEEDS, TOKYO STORY) portrays Kin, a former geisha who has parlayed her earnings from her erstwhile profession into work as a moneylender; but most of her clients are ex-colleagues of hers, and their lives are not what they once were, nor do any of them have much real chance for happiness. As in many of Naruse’s films, the focus is on the heartbreaking limitations of women’s lives as they see their opportunities constricted by the inexorable passage of time.