Movie of the month: The Ball at the Anjo House (dir. Kozaburo Yoshimura, 1947)

Image source: IMDB For all the annoyances of social media, if there is one thing I love, it’s getting recommendations for films I’d never heard of previously. A Letterboxd list brought The Ball at the Anjo House to my attention a few weeks ago and I was lucky enough to find a watchable copy on YouTube. After seeing it, I cannot believe I had never heard of it before. The Ball at the Anjo House largely takes place over a single evening in the lives of the aristocratic Anjo family. However, their privileges are dwindling in the world of post-WWII Japan. Sans peerage and wealth, the decades ahead will be quite different and no one in the family can agree how much of this will be good or bad. With old traditions dying and their grand house on the market, the family holds one last ball before saying goodbye to their former way of life forever. Interpersonal drama intensifies the disruptions brought about by social change. Romance and sex across class lines, while no longer under the old…