Mizoguchi Kenji’s staggering Ugetsu is a film of many riddles and paradoxes that unfolds with the illusory simplicity of a fable. Its initial straightforwardness, as a parable against the pitfalls of human greed, is a misdirection that leads us into a void in which objectivity and subjectivity intermingle, hopelessly and invigoratingly clouding rationality.

The narrative begins on the shore of Japan’s Lake Biwa in the 16th century, when the country was engulfed in civil war. Mizoguchi spotlights two neighboring families: Genjurô (Mori Masayuki), his wife Miyagi (Tanaka Kinuyo), and their child (Sawamura Ichisaburo); and Tôbei (Ozawa Eitarô) and his wife Ohama (Mito Mitsuko). The heads of these families are broadly contrasted, as Genjurô is a serious potter while Tôbei is a stumbling ne’er-do-well whose dreams of becoming a samurai are ridiculous in lieu of his humble origins. (The film is alert to the classism of the samurai code.