Adapted from the 1948 literary classic by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters follows the lives of four siblings who have taken on their family’s kimono manufacturing business in the years leading up to the Pacific War. The two oldest have been married for some time, but according to tradition, the rebellious youngest sister cannot wed until the third (conservative and terribly shy) finds a husband. Film scholar James Quandt observed that veteran filmmaker Kon Ichikawa created “an exercise in traditionalism, intended to affirm Japanese identity at a time when Japan was reemerging as a major commercial and industrial power.”