Mizoguchi considered The Life of O-Haru his masterpiece. Many critics agree, and consider it among the greatest films of all time - though it is still insufficiently appreciated in America. Based on a seventeenth-century novel by Saikaku, “The Woman Who Loved Love,” the film chronicles the decline of a beautiful court lady who is gradually stripped of social respectability until she is reduced to prostitution and beggary. “The Genroku period background is evoked in images of staggering beauty, and camera movements of truly epic sweep. As the woman of Osaka exiled for loving a commoner, Kinuyo Tanaka gives a performance of soul-rending depth and sensitivity. Mizoguchi's sympathy for the plight of women in feudal society is here given its most perfect and profound expression. Beyond its themes of social criticism, The Life of O-Haru achieves, in its narrative of human suffering and redemption, a final catharsis and realization of ‘mono no aware' (the elegiac awareness of the need for all things to pass) that is truly transcendent.” --Tom Luddy