Wife, Be Like a Rose (Tsuma yo bara no yo ni)

Wife, Be Like a Rose (Tsuma yo bara no yo ni)
Directed by Mikio Naruse (1935, 35mm, 74 minutes)

The first Japanese talkie released in the United States, Wife! Be Like a Rose (also known as Kimiko) is Mikio Naruse’s finest pre-war film, a droll family drama in which Kimiko Yamamoto attempts to reunite her despondent poetess mother with her estranged father.

Japanese Film Masters: Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, and Mikio Naruse
This series offers a rare opportunity to explore the work of three of the undisputed masters of Japanese cinema – Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, and Mikio Naruse. All three directors got their start in the silent-era and worked prolifically throughout Japanese cinema’s two strongest periods: the 1930s and the 1950s. The cornerstone of the series is a program of six films by Kenji Mizoguchi which traces the stylistic, formal, and thematic development of his work from Sisters of the Gion (1936) to such late masterpieces as Sansho the Bailiff (1954). Representative films by Ozu and Naruse, Mizoguchi’s major rivals in the 1930s, will also be included, suggesting the range of aesthetic options available in the period. All screenings have English subtitles.