Naruse returns to the geisha world he explores in the early film Apart from You (PFA, April 6) for this penetrating character study, one of his subtlest and finest films. It is a detailed, virtually plotless portrait of four former geishas who contemplate their lives and the ongoing instability in their relationships with men. Only in warm camaraderie with each other do they find a refuge from the harsh loneliness of their lives, the pain of which they continue to conceal behind the placid exterior of the professional geisha. Based on three short stories by Fumiko Hayashi (Naruse's favorite writer, on whose works his successful Lightning and Repast were also based), Late Chrysanthemums epitomizes the director's vision that, despite the stultifying oppression of family life, women are offered only illusory freedom on the outside.