text: Mikio Naruse's examination of the lives of three idling, constantly complaining, single ex-geishas in post-war Japan is a wonderful character piece. They used to be friends in the old days but now their relationship is strained because one of the women has become a successful moneylender and the other two owe her. Although the moneylender is the only one who has become successful in this rebuilding economy, she is the only one of the three that has no children. The other two each have a child whom they depend upon for income, because neither of them work. Complications ensue when the kids decide to get married (though not to each other) and leave home. This leads to the bitter, grumbling old women to become even more bitter and grumbling, getting drunk and bemoaning their rotten children and inconsiderate friend the moneylender. Meanwhile the moneylender is herself unhappy, despite her fortunes. She has no one besides her young deaf maid to keep her company and chance encounters with two former lovers from her geisha days lead nowhere - all they really want is to borrow money from her. The three characters are all neck-deep in the quicksand of their own bored lives and are too weary to struggle much, usually opting instead to resign themselves to the futility of it all or, at the very most, toss complaints back and forth to each other.<br /><br />"Late Chrysanthemums" is very slow-moving and not much actually happens but Naruse, like all great directors, has the ability to do much with very little. I haven't seen much of his work but I suspect that this isn't his best, even though it is very good. The problem, I think, is that it all doesn't seem to amount to much. But the film is full of good points. Although it is cynical, it isn't overly so. Naruse seems to sympathize with his desperate characters, and he paints vivid portraits that make the characters seem even somewhat noble in the squalor of their self-made misery. While the film isn't a must-see, it is important as a fragment of the work of a great little-known (outside of his own country) director, precious little of which is available on video here in the U. S.