Ugetsu is evocativeof the Buddhist universe of Noh drama, where time is a movement of consciousness,memory is as tangible as the present, and the dead return to voice their grief orlonging. Blending a tale of karmic law, a ghost story, and a love story,Mizoguchi also refers to other Japanese art forms such as narrative picturescrolls in his use of perspective and his signature long takes that move usseamlessly from one scene to the next. In sixteenth-century Japan, with thepandemonium of civil wars a looming presence in their lives, the potter Genjuroand his wife long to be "rich and safe," respectively. But artisticvanity draws Genjuro into the paradisiacal realm of a phantom princess. Mizoguchibuilds the "other" world entirely out of what he is given in this one:shadows and lighting, decor and texture, and the graceful chicaneryof!nbsp;desire.