Kenji Mizoguchi took a quite a few chances in making this 1953 film, a classy ghost story centering on families besieged by civil war and knocked around by forces they cannot control. Drawn from works by Ueda Akinari (as well as Guy de Maupassant), this film is as funny as it is cruel, and genuinely haunting in unexpected ways. Ugetsu Monogatari is one of the seminal works of Japanese cinema for domestic audiences, and its new 4K digital restoration is breathtaking — a testament to the textures and tales hidden within shadows. It’s mordantly funny that a film so dedicated to excavating the act of temptation now comes before us shining like a scintillating jewel, beckoning the viewer with its beauty into the scorched plains of history. JASON SHAWHAN
Ugetsu Monogatari
