Japanese Film Classics from the BAMPFA Collection

December 12, 2018–January 27, 2019

This series showcases 35mm archival prints from BAMPFA’s outstanding Japanese cinema collection, from Mizoguchi to Miyazaki.

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  • Harp of Burma

  • When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

  • Double Suicide

  • Early Summer

  • Ugetsu

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Double Suicide

    • Saturday, December 29 7:45 PM
    • Sunday, January 27 7 PM
    Masahiro Shinoda
    Japan, 1969

    BAMPFA Collection

    Shinoda’s “remix” of a classic Japanese bunraku puppet play finds live actors, puppets, and their handlers all part of the action, heightened by a Brechtian divide between “story” and “telling” and a jarring score by Toru Takemitsu.

  • Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

    • Saturday, January 26 3 PM
    Hayao Miyazaki
    Japan, 1984

    Japanese Language Version
    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    In Miyazaki’s stirring animated epic, a girl both soldier and scientist seeks to reconcile the last remnants of her still-warring species with the monstrous biological order overtaking earth.

  • When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

    • Saturday, January 19 8 PM
    Mikio Naruse
    Japan, 1960

    BAMPFA Collection

    Hideko Takamine portrays the consummate Naruse heroine: high-minded, determined, and out of her element in a sordid world. “An elegant essay in black-and-white CinemaScope . . . could give heartbreak lessons to Fassbinder and Sirk” (Village Voice). 

  • Harp of Burma

    • Thursday, January 17 7 PM
    Kon Ichikawa
    Japan, 1956

    BAMPFA Collection

    A lyrical, haunting requiem for the victims of war, set amid the giant Buddhas of Burma. Winner of the top prize at the Venice film festival and one of Ichikawa’s most famous films.

  • Ugetsu

    • Wednesday, December 12 7 PM
    • Sunday, January 13 7 PM
    Kenji Mizoguchi
    Japan, 1953

    BAMPFA Collection
    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    In sixteenth-century Japan, a potter has his head turned by a phantom enchantress, with predictable results. “A shattering experience, among the greatest movies ever made” (New York Times).

  • Ikiru

    • Friday, January 11 7 PM
    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1952

    BAMPFA Collection

    In Kurosawa’s humanist masterpiece, an ordinary civil servant discovers what it means to live. This Japanese Everyman was perhaps Takashi Shimura’s greatest role.

  • Early Summer

    • Friday, December 28 4:15 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1951

    BAMPFA Collection

    An exquisite, faintly melancholy portrait of a family, with Setsuko Hara as the daughter on whose marriage everything depends. “I wanted to depict the cycles of life, the transience of life” (Ozu).

  • Sanshiro Sugata

    • Sunday, December 16 6:30 PM
    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1943

    BAMPFA Collection

    A young man learns dedication and discipline in life—and judo—in Kurosawa’s debut film, “a must for Kurosawa admirers” (Los Angeles Times).

  • Sansho the Bailiff

    • Saturday, December 15 8 PM
    Kenji Mizoguchi
    Japan, 1954

    BAMPFA Collection

    Bring all your senses and your handkerchief to this haunting tale of a family (led by Kinuyo Tanaka) victimized by the cruel practices of feudal Japan, “developed with intuition, cunning, and an overarching sense of tragedy” (SF Weekly).