When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (original title)

Director:

Mikio Naruse

Writer:

Ryûzô Kikushima

Release Date:

25 June 1963 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

This is the story of Mama, a.k.a. Keiko, a middle-aged bar hostess who must choose to either get married or buy a bar of her own...

Plot Keywords:

Money | Bar | Widow | Ginza | Brother

Cast

Hideko Takamine	...	Keiko Yashiro
Masayuki Mori	...	Nobuhiko Fujisaki
Reiko Dan	...	Junko Inchihashi
Tatsuya Nakadai	...	Kenichi Komatsu, the manager
Daisuke Katô	...	Matsukichi Sekine
Ganjirô Nakamura	...	Goda
Eitarô Ozawa	...	Minobe
Keiko Awaji	...	Yuri
Jun Tatara
Yû Fujiki
Masao Oda
Ken Mitsuda
Chikako Hosokawa
Sadako Sawamura
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Toshiko Higuchi
Ayako Honma
Natsuko Kahara
Machiko Kitagawa
Rumi Konishi
Takuzô Kumagai
Kyoko Mori
Fuyuki Nakagami
Chieko Nakakita
Fumie Noguchi
Yutaka Sada
Kyû Sazanka
Noriko Sengoku
Akira Sera
Toki Shiozawa
Ayumi Sonoda
Kin Sugai
Takaji Suzuki
Yoshifumi Tajima
Akira Tani
Mitsuo Tsuda
Haruko Tôgô
Eiko Wakabayashi
Keiko Yanagawa
Michiyo Yokoyama

Directed by
Mikio Naruse

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Ryûzô Kikushima

Produced by
Ryûzô Kikushima	....	producer

Original Music by
Toshirô Mayuzumi

Cinematography by
Masao Tamai

Film Editing by
Eiji Ooi

Production Design by
Satoru Chûko

Costume Design by
Hideko Takamine

Production Management
Shin Morita	....	executive in charge of production

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Sakae Hirosawa	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Masao Fujiyoshi	....	sound
Hisashi Shimonaga	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Ichirô Inohara	....	gaffer
Chôshirô Ishii	....	gaffer

Production Companies

• Toho Company

Distributors

• Toho Company (1963) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1975) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)
• New Star (2008) (Greece) (theatrical)
• Criterion Collection, The (2006) (USA) (DVD)

Also Known As:

"Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki" - Japan (original title)

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Perspecta Sound encoding) (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Portugal:M/12 | UK:PG | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Toho Company

A great filmmaker in search of a plot

Compared to Ozu or Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse's films are much lighter in tone, with more humour, and less of the overwhelming sense of pain and tragedy. Sometimes this works really well, offering stories that are emotionally involving but not morbidly extreme, but in this film I think it results in a film that's shapeless and drifts past the viewer without really going anywhere in particular.

The performances are excellent; of course Hideko Takamine is wonderful in the leading role running a hostess bar, but Reiko Dan is great fun as a young, flirty, ambitious hostess, and Tatsuya Nakadai as the loyal young bar manager is like a hero of the French New Wave, quiet, cool, and intense. Keiko's customers at the bar are to an extent caricatures, but are nicely drawn.

The film offers a full and fair-minded account of the world of hostess bars, with Naruse's usual interest in financial matters and the minutiae of life. But despite the occasional sad event, the cumulative impression is not of a woman in a desperately tragic situation, but more a case of just one damn thing after another. It lurches from moments of high drama to silliness to tragedy to the mundane, failing to achieve a consistent attitude or tone.

There are perhaps too many characters, so that while some relationships are clear and powerful, others pass by with little emotional effect. Unlike in Iwashigumo (Summer Clouds) the main character of this film isn't heroic, isn't keeping up any tradition, and doesn't have any particular claim on our affections. Her defence about needing a fancy lifestyle and expensive apartment for her job, and her attitude to her family, don't seem likely to endear her to the viewer either.

Overall, it feels like a set of great talents wandering around in an inadequate storyline. It's not enough to present the facts; a great film needs to use them to show you something more general about life. And something more profound than, "Well, every job has its problems."