Forever a Woman

Widely considered Kinuyo Tanaka’s first personal film, FOREVER A WOMAN tells the story of a recent divorcée (Yumeji Tsukioka) who is diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer. In adapting the real-life story of the poet Fumiko Nakajo, Tanaka and screenwriter Sumie Tanaka (a longtime collaborator of Mikio Naruse’s, though of no familial relation to Kinuyo) investigate issues of mortality, sexuality, and female independence with a frankness and audacity unprecedented in postwar Japanese cinema.