“When the name Kenji Mizoguchi is intoned, every piece of camera equipment on earth should execute a deep bow. In the six films showing at Film Forum over the next two weeks in new 35mm prints, Mizoguchi’s gentle but unwavering camera nurtures and observes his characters’ often tragic lives with an emotionalism that is, paradoxically, as intense as any committed to film, yet free of melodrama.”

– Bruce Bennett, The New York Sun. Click here to read review

“If you have never witnessed the visual equivalent of perfect pitch, or understood how a single tracking shot can feel like a declaration of faith, here is your chance.”

– Anthony Lane, The New Yorker. Click here to read review

“There’s more experience, more beauty and more elegant craftsmanship in these half-dozen pictures than most directors manage to get onto a movie screen in a lifetime.”

– Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times. Click here to read review

“Japan’s Kenji Mizoguchi is more than simply pantheonworthy (and superior to his better-known peers Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu.) He’s absolutely necessary.” 

– Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

I am not known for agreeing with Anthony Lane, a person I tend to like more as a writer than as a critic, but the man has a point.