Night River

Yoru no kawa

Director: Kōzaburō Yoshimura
Country: Japan

1956 | 104 min. | Japanese
Subtitles: English, German
FSK | Nicht geprüft / No clearance

Cast_ Fujiko Yamamoto, Ken Uehara, Keizō Kawasaki, Michiko Ai, Kazuko Ichikawa Screenplay_ Sumie Tanaka Camera_ Kazuo Miyagawa Producer_ Masaichi Nagata Rights_ Kadokawa Corporation

The first film in color by Japanese master Kōzaburō Yoshimura. A rediscovery, screened in a restored version.

Kiwa Funaki, a successful designer of colorful kimonos, makes her way as an independent businesswoman in a male-dominated world. She is as skillful at evading the advances of her suitors as the wishes of her family. In post-war Kyoto, she floats, like her fabrics, between tradition and modernity, between form and freedom. Then she meets a fascinating, and married, doctor.

With a breathtaking color palette, Yoshimura depicts the drama of an unconventional modern woman in times of upheaval, free of all sentimentality and mawkishness. Visually stunning and emotionally unforgettable.

Director

Between 1934 and 1974, Kōzaburō Yoshimura directed numerous classics such as ›The Ball at the Anjo House‹ (1947), ›Clothes of Deception‹ (1951), and ›Sisters of Nishijin‹ (1952). He is considered a master of Japanese melodrama.

Screenings