The Lady of Musashino

The Lady of Musashino , MusashinoFujin? is a 1951 Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. The script for the film was adapted by Mizoguchi from the bestselling serial novel by Shhei oka.

In the immediate postwar era, Japanese traditions and morals are in rapid decline. Tadao comes home drunk every night, and is having sex with his female university students. He also propositions Tomiko. Tomiko, unhappy in her marriage, lusts after Tsutomu, but Shinzaburo is more interested in Michiko. Although Michiko has suppressed feelings for Tsutomu, she resists his advances on traditional moral grounds because she is a married woman, and because she does not want Tsutomu to fall prey to the new permissiveness of postwar Japan because of her love to him. However, when she learns of Tadaos plans to run off with Tomiko after swindling her out of her inheritance, she decides that the only honorable course of action is to commit suicide, and leaveof her estate to Tsutomu.The main theme of The Lady of Musashino is the moral decline of Japans traditional culture and morality in a society disrupted by the aftermath of World War II, and the sudden influx of foreign ideas and foreign moral concepts. ........

Source: Wikipedia