Sansho the Bailiff

Beautifully shot tragedy about a brother and sister taken from privilege and sold into slavery, and their journey of loss, redemption and sacrifice. Rightly a classic, but is perhaps a little too quick paced for its own good; director Mizoguchi wanted to focus more on the title character and slavery, but ended up getting overruled into focusing on a broken family piecing their lives back together. There is just too much beauty in the setting and tone for a critic to pry at what might be missing. The black-and-white not only sets the mood, but is visually stunning, as if each scene is a moving photograph—particularly when the family is traveling through fields of miscanthus sinensis (Chinese silver grass).