Ichikawa is a deadpan sophisticate, with a film technique so masterly that he pulls you into the worlds he creates. There doesn’t seem to be a narrative in The Makioka Sisters, yet you don't feel as if anything is missing.

Makes the melodramatic seem positively majestic.

The Makioka Sisters is a Whartonian work of compassionate nostalgia tinctured with irony.

...attuned to the ways women, bound by tradition, negotiate a world ostensibly run by men.