THE MAKIOKA SISTERS Movie Review

Kon Ichikawa's leisurely but always engaging film—set in 1938 Osaka—is a portrait of four lovely Japanese sisters who are heiresses to a dwindling but still considerable family fortune. The movie is about the traditional system that dictates how the two youngest sisters are to be matched with proper husbands, and how the desires or stubbornness of any one of the sisters can set machinery in motion that will impact all of them. The older sisters may be frustrated by what they perceive to be the rebelliousness and irresponsibility of the younger, but they're also aware that the family's entire way of life is being altered by the realities of a rapidly changing world. The picture is based on a celebrated novel by Junichiro Tanizaki called A Light Snowfall, which was filmed two times prior to this splendid and moving 1983 version. Ichikawa (Fires on the Plain) plunges us into the sisters’ world immediately and without traditional road maps; it takes a while to catch up to the details of the sisters’ lives and their specific situations, but it's such a joy to be with them that the time it takes to get our bearings is like a gift. As each woman's personality and longing becomes clear, we feel as if our understanding of her is something we gleaned a little at a time—as we do with people in real life—rather than as neat, preordained plot developments. The film is alive, and its effect on attentive audiences can be magical. Happily, The Makioka Sisters wasn't cut down by a plot-mad American film distributor for its release here; the full 140-minute version is available theatrically, as well as on videocassette. Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma, Yuko Kotegawa, and Sayuri Yoshinaga are the sisters, and director Juzo Itami (Tampopo) is a suitor. They—and the film—are wonderful.

NEXT STOP … Early Spring, Tokyo Story, The Heiress

1983 140m/C JP Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga; D: Kon Ichikawa. VHS, LV FCA, TPV