Sansho the Bailiff

<b>Screening because <a href="https://www.filmhouse.org.uk/weve-got-a-cinema-and-were-not-afraid-to-use-it/">We've Got A Cinema And We're Not Afraid To Use It</a>!</b> Released in 1954, <i>Sansho the Bailiff</i> shared the prestigious Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival with three other films – <i>On the Waterfront<i>, <i>Seven Samurai</i> and <i>La Strada</i> – a list on which <i>Sansho</i> is, most assuredly, not out of place. It’s also a list that points to how, comparatively and perhaps inexplicably, it hasn’t quite remained as much part of the ‘canon’ as the others. It was always one of the highlights of Mizoguchi’s oeuvre, but never one that figured as high up the list of the ‘Best Films Ever Made’ as, it could be argued, it should have. (Incidentally, the winner of the Golden Lion that year was the largely forgotten Renato Castellani’s <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>. Well, it is an Italian film festival!) 11th Century Japan. While on a journey to visit their father, a banished governor, Zushio and Anju are attacked, separated from their mother and sold as slaves to an estate managed by the brutal Sansho. The children grow up as slaves on the estate, but when Anju hears a newly acquired slave singing a song that mentions their names, they realise their mother may still be alive… An ageless, brutal yet elegant meditation on power, suffering, and human dignity, <i>Sansho the Bailiff</i> is one of the towering achievements of Japanese cinema. Staggeringly, it is at least 27 years (it may be a lot longer, but records only go back so far) since <i>Sansho</i> played at Filmhouse. These screening(s) are long overdue. <i>Selected and written by Rod White, Programme Director</i>DramaPT2H4MPG2026-05-16
Kinuyo Tanaka
Yoshiaki Hanayagi
Kyōko Kagawa
Kenji Mizoguchi
Masaichi Nagata
Sansho the Bailiff"Sansho the Bailiff"

Showtimes

May 16, 1:00 pm

May 17, 7:20 pm

Filmhouse Cinema