Mizoguchi used many long takes in the film , often lasting up to six minutes . He also used many dolly shots for dramatic effects and in order to enhance the emotional state of the characters . He utilized both the foreground and the background in many shots . Derek Malcolm said that " If Mizoguchi was the poet of women , he was also the poet of houses , rooms , landscape and urban vistas . His period detail and sumptuous camera style lent his stories a fantastic naturalism , heightened by an almost musical editing style . " Jonathan Rosenbaum called it Mizoguchi 's greatest film and praised his " refusal to use close-ups … the theme of female sacrifice that informs most of his major works is given a singular resonance and complexity here . " Derek Adams of '' Time Out '' called it " a heartbreaker to end them all " and praised its cinematography . Richard Brody called it " one of the cinema ’s great outpourings of imaginative energy . " Noel Burch called it " one of his most deeply ‘ feminist ’ films " and Tony Rayns called it " the peak of Mizoguchi 's art . " John Pym praised the film 's sets , saying that they were " crammed with human detail " and that when they were " sometimes offset by shots of notably uncluttered spaces , it is to highlight the isolation of the two principles in a teeming world dominated by class prejudice , harsh economics , and sheer blank human indifference . " The film was selected to be screened in the Cannes Classics section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival
2015 Cannes Film Festival
2015 Cannes Film Festival
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums