When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

“The tree sprouts no matter how strong the wind blows.”

Keiko (Hideko Takamine), whom everyone calls Mama, is a 30-year-old widow who wants a bar of her own on the Ginza, a place where she answers to no one. Until then she climbs the stairs each night to her job as a hostess, smiling for drunks and dressing well to look sure of herself. Mikio Naruse follows how the rent, her mother and her brother take every yen she earns, and how she keeps the smile on anyway.