The marvelous Twilight Saloon is daringly enclosed both spatially and temporally-it takes place in one setting, a beer hall, over the course of one evening. Uchida employs this concentration to fashion a microcosm for a group portrait of Japan. One by one, the regulars of the crepuscular bar appear: the pianist who dreams of becoming a composer; a stripper who had planned to be a ballet dancer; an elderly painter who rues his art having been used for militarist propaganda during the war. . . . The “twilight” is more than just a time of day; here, it is a state of being, a suspension between past and present, between the camaraderie of the saloon and the harsh world outside. The roaming camera forestalls any sense of stasis, and Uchida's sympathy with the working class and downtrodden lends the film a graceful social density.