Women in the Mirror

The Dec. 3 screening will take place in the Francesca Beale Theater of our Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center

In his final fiction feature, Yoshida returned to an old subject in his work: the unfathomable trauma known by Japan due to the United States’ dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mariko Okada stars as one of three women who discover long-buried ties that might imply their interrelation, united by a shared memory of a destroyed Hiroshima. The women return to Hiroshima, and the film begins shifting its components around to comprise a mesmerizing and melancholic puzzlework with vast psychological and political implications. Although less formally adventurous than some of his other signature works, Women in the Mirror nevertheless marks a worthy and moving testament for one of Japan’s most fearless film artists. Print courtesy of the Japan Foundation.