"I saw this movie at Film Forum when I was in college. I remember watching all three hours of it with my mouth open. It fueled my interest in so many things: monks, bells, medieval Russia, structuring movies and plays like novels . . . I was taking a really dumb screenwriting class at the time, and this contradicted everything I had just been taught."

"“It’s by far my favourite film and so different to anything I’ve seen before. It feels like an artform in itself. I think I could just watch that movie and no other for the rest of my life and not feel as though I’d missed anything. It’s basically three men walking around a field. That’s all it is, yet it’s utterly mind- blowing.”"

"Every spring, the three younger Makioka sisters don their finest kimonos to stroll beneath the cherry blossoms at Kyoto, a ceremony that seems to encapsulate the ritualized elegance of their lives and their deep bonds of affection, both of which are threatened by the family’s declining fortunes and a Japan that is swiftly changing on the eve of World War II."