The Moon Has Risen

A charming and vivid family drama, scripted by Ozu and directed by actress Tanaka, who also makes a cameo appearance as a put-upon servant. Kitahara plays spoilt and imperious Setsuko Asai, youngest daughter of a wealthy family from Nara. Together with handsome lodger Shoji, she plots to marry off her elder sister to a family friend who has long admired her; in a comic interlude, the inspired lovers begin to correspond in code, to the frustration of the plotters. But when Setsuko herself falls in love, she is not quite so adroit at manipulating matters. The relationship between the three sisters (the eldest a shy, widowed stay-at-home) is delicately drawn, as is the growing attraction between Setsuko and Shoji, which at first threatens to spoil their free-and-easy friendship. A delicate fable of growing up.