The Japanese director Kon Ichikawa, who died at 92 in 2008, had a genius for capturing the fleeting nature of beauty, the death implicit in the bloom. His artistry reached its acme in his exquisite 1983 adaptation of Junichiro Tanizaki's beloved novel The Makioka Sisters. Ichikawa follows the lives of four young Osaka heiresses in the years before World War II, as the old traditions begin to die off. The style is glancing, the compositions full of subtle tension, and the color palette endlessly suggestive.
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