“Woman of Tokyo was the moment when Ozu became Ozu; when the egg cracked. Form and content synchronized. Photography was not of but was...” (Nathaniel Dorsky). Amazing, or perhaps not, that it should have happened with a “quickie,” short both in length (forty-seven minutes) and in its making (eight days). The story involves a young woman who resorts to prostitution to help put her younger brother through college; when he finds out, tragedy ensues. Reminiscent, in its theme of women's sacrifice, of the social-realist films that Mizoguchi began making at this time, still it has at least one diversion from the tragedy (a clip from a Lubitsch film). J. Hoberman has called Woman of Tokyo “a subtle riot of discordant formal devices....The crucial scene is dominated by a giant close-up of a teapot, and the ending is a breathtaking wrench of perspective from individual tragedy to matter-of-fact social breakdown. Ozu never made another film like this one, and neither has anyone else.”

Woman of Tokyo is repeated on Thursday, December 11.