THIS CLASSIC 1952 drama by Kenji Mizoguchi, The Life of O-Haru, has been re-released as part of a limited season of the Japanese director's work.

The film, which won the international director's prize at the 1952 Venice Film Festival, is a compelling chronicle of a woman's suffering.

In her old age, O-Haru (Kinuyo Tanaka) looks back at her extraordinary life as a concubine in 17th-century Japan.

She remembers her first love, lowly servant Katsunosuke (Toshiro Mifune), whose amorous attentions ultimately brought shame on her family.

Cast into exile, O-Haru sought work as a prostitute for a powerful warlord, from whom she suffered victimisation and abuse.

The story, which is told through a series of flash-backs, follows O-Haru's decline and fall into a relentless spiral of misery and degradation.

This visually-stunning film uses imagery to strengthen the dramatic pathos of O-Haru's situation, while Mizoguchi uses her story to comment on wider social injustices.

Until Sunday and also Thursday. Box office: 023 8033 5533.