In eleventh-century Japan, two children are kidnapped and sold into slavery whiletheir mother Tamiki withers away on a distant island, dreaming only of beingreunited with her children. After many years the son assumes his rightful post asprovincial governor and sets about deposing the cruel bailiff who brought tragedyupon his family. As probing and rigorously worked as a Greek tragedy, this film'sdistanced determinism vies with the direct engagement of the characters to effectthe richest form of drama, a purity of emotion. In Mizoguchi, the long-shot is aspsychologically astute as the close-up. As Tamiki, Kinuyo Tanaka haunts as inUgetsu (where she plays a ghost). Her presence, established in the earlysequences, is thereafter felt largely through her absence; banished to anoff-screen hell, she is nonetheless perceived, not as an apparition but as afeeling, like a voice carried by the wind.