Anjô-ke no butôkai

It's post-war Japan. Titles of nobility have been stripped from the aristocracy, and agrarian reform has done the same to their incomes. The Anjo family is broke. They're down to their mansion, which is about to be taken from them by business associates, who used their rank as fronts for arms manufacture before the war. Second daughter Setsuko Hara wants them to live in the new world, but the others are unwilling to let go. So the night before the house goes, they throw a party, where all the skeletons come out of the closets.

Kôzaburô Yoshimura's movie starts with Chekhov's THE CHERRY ORCHARD, but in typical Japanese fashion removes the original's snide humor and replaces it with pain and loss. The images borrow heavily from French Magical Realism, the precursor to film noir, but here, the wreckage, the artifacts overturned, the strings of pearls broken and scattered on the beach, the empty wine bottles scattered beneath the furniture token not just the end, but a chance to start over again.

With the destruction of the old class system, there is a chance for something new and better to arise. Those who are successful include black marketeers, but also honest entrepreneurs. The old nobility may lose their titles and lands, but they will at least live in the new, real world, and perhaps, add a touch of grace.