The Ceremony

A dense, formally ambitious examination of a decaying aristocratic family as microcosm for Japan's militaristic rise and fall, steeped in ritual, tradition, and existential decay.

Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades.