UTANÇ SOKAĞI

In an establishment called Dreamland located in Tokyo’s red-light district, the desolate lives and faded dreams of five sex workers intersect. When the momentum of the anti-prostitution bill starts to progress, the women find their allegiances tested by economic necessity and personal conscience.

A box-office smash in Japan, Kenji Mizoguchi’s swan song is a compassionate melodrama on sex work and a devastating portrait of lives ruled by debt. Punctuated by an eerie electronic score, its carefully framed, interwoven vignettes moodily evoke the textures of Tokyo’s notorious red-light district.