Capital Celluloid - Day 218: Monday August 8

Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi, 1954): BFI Southbank, NFT2 6.10pm

This is screening as part of the BFI's Passport to Cinema season and will be introduced by Richard Combs. The film is also being shown at BFI Southbank on Sunday 7 August and Sunday 14 August.

Chicago Reader review:

'This is one of the greats, and I'm too much in awe of it to say much more than: See it—as often as you can. Kenji Mizoguchi's 1954 film is the story of a family torn apart by political upheavals in 11th-century Japan—the children sold into slavery, the mother made a courtesan, the father lost. Mizoguchi looks out on utter devastation, but gathers the threads of his narrative—the visual and aural motifs, the sublime camera movements—to weave a final image of affirmation, transcendence, eternity. With Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, and Masao Shimizu; photographed by Kazuo Miyagawa. In Japanese with subtitles.' 125 min. By Dave Kehr

Here is the trailer.