Mizoguchi considered The Life of Oharu his masterpiece and critics have placed itamong the greatest films of all time. Based on a seventeenth-century novel bySaikaku, The Woman Who Loved Love, the film chronicles the decline of a beautifulcourt lady (Kinuyo Tanaka) who is gradually stripped of social respectabilityuntil she is reduced to prostitution and beggary. "The Genroku periodbackground is evoked in images of staggering beauty and camera movements of trulyepic sweep. Mizoguchi's sympathy for the plight of women in feudal society ishere given its most perfect and profound expression. Beyond its themes of socialcriticism, The Life of Oharu achieves, in its narrative of human suffering andredemption, a final catharsis and realization of mono no aware (the elegiacawareness of the need for all things to pass) that is truly transcendent."(Tom Luddy)