Film Review
Kenji Mizoguchi was already a veteran of Japanese cinema by the time he
was discovered by western audiences in the early 1950s. Akira
Kurosawa may have awakened the West's interest in Japanese cinema with
his film
Rashomon (1950), but he was
the new kid on the block compared with Mizoguchi, whose filmmaking
credits stretched back as far as 1923.
The Life of Oharu (1952) and
Ugetsu monogatari were the films
that brought Mizoguchi to the attention of a western audience, but
these were late flourishings in a career that was already extraordinary
by any standards.
Ugetsu monogatari, whose title
translates literally as
Tales of the
Rain and Moon, was inspired by the short stories of the renowned
18th Century Japanese writer Ueda Akinari. Whilst many of his
contemporaries were having success making social realist films which a modern
Japanese audience could easily relate to, Mizoguchi was still wedded to
the traditions of the past, and a style of filmmaking that was
beginning to look outdated. What makes
Ugetsu monogatari such a unique
piece of cinematic art, its haunting lyrical beauty and seamless fusion
of reality and fantasy, made it virtually irrelevant to a Japan that
was still traumatised by the experience of war and its aftermath.
Mizoguchi may have struggled to find an appreciative audience for the
film at home, but it was critically acclaimed in the West and secured
his international reputation.
Ugetsu monogatari is a film
which typifies both Mizoguchi's technique and his preoccupation with
women as victims in a male-dominated world. Stylistically, the
most striking aspect of this film is its fluidity. Scenes melt
into one another, as though in a dream, often without us being
aware of the fact. This is accomplished through Mizoguchi's most
ingenious device, the invisible dissolve through a slow tracking
shot. Mizoguchi uses this device to remarkable effect, blurring
the distinction between what is real and what is not, and lending an
unsettling otherworldly aura to the entire film. Perhaps the best
example of this is the sequence near the end of the film in which
Genjurô returns to his homestead to find it totally
deserted. The camera follows him as he leaves his home by one
door and re-enters by another, but when he returns his wife and child
have magically appeared from nowhere. Without a camera edit to
break the flow, the spectator experiences what Genjurô
experiences, a seamless transition from the real world into that of the
imagination.
Mizoguchi's cinema is often likened to Japanese art in its simple but
highly alluring use of the visual form. There are several scenes
in
Ugetsu monogatari that
have an indefinable yet profound beauty, such as the one in which the
Lady Wakasa and her servant are seen walking through a field of tall
reeds, like lost souls in a limbo world. The sequence on the
mist-shrouded lake is just as eye-catching, suffused with an eerie
Cocteau-esque poetry that suggests supernatural forces are about to
come into play. The stylisation of the Kitsuki Manor scenes
clearly shows the influence of Noh Theatre, not just in the minimalist
set design, but also in the slightly exaggerated performances, a subtle
hint to the spectator that seeing is not necessarily believing.
The most consistent theme in Mizoguchi's cinema is the depiction of
women as victims of male folly.
Ugetsu
monogatari is possibly the best illustration of this, since it
shows us two women who, despite their best efforts, end up being
destroyed, either physically or spiritually, by their husband's greed
and ambition. Women traditionally had a raw deal in Japanese
society, their role being little more than to give birth and act as a
willing plaything for men. In this film, they are portrayed in a
more independently minded, almost heroic light, as selfless
homebuilders, in contrast to men, who are shown to be both egocentric
and foolish, prey to mad impulses which rarely achieve any good.
It would be stretching it to say that this a pro-feminist film, but it
is certainly unusual for its time in its depiction of women as the
wiser and nobler sex.
Widely considered the pinacle
of Mizoguchi's achievements,
Ugetsu
monogatari now ranks as a landmark in world cinema.
The film's artistic merits are better appreciated today that when the
film was first seen. In 1953, it was awarded the Silver Lion at
the Venice Film Festival; the jury did not feel it merited a higher
accolade than this. In fact the Golden Lion was withheld that
year since no film was deemed sufficiently worthy to receive this award.
The film also garnered an Oscar nomination for its costume design, but
did not win the award. Ultimately, the only honour that matters
is the status accorded by time, and
Ugetsu
monogatari scores extremely highly in this regard.
With its sublime visual poetry and stark humanity, this has to be one of the most beguiling
of all films.
© James Travers 2010
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Next Kenji Mizoguchi film:
Sansho dayu (1954)
Film Synopsis
In 16th Century Japan, Genjurô and Tôbei are peasant
farmers who live on the shore of Lake Biwa with their wives, Miyagi and
Ohama. The two men supplement their meagre income by making
clay pots, which they sell at the market in the town of
Nagahama. This being a time of war, the pots fetch a good
price, and Genjurô returns to his wife triumphant with his
earnings. Seeing that they have a lucrative sideline, the two men
devote all their efforts into making more pots, ignoring Miyagi's
appeals to put family before wealth. After an attack on their
village by roaming soldiers, Genjurô and Tôbei decide to
head for Nagahama to sell their pottery, accompanied by their wives and
Genjurô's young son, Genichi. To avoid marauding soldiers
and outlaws, they decide to make the journey by boat. When
they encounter another boat occupied by a dying man, Miyagi insists on
staying behind with her son. Having reached Nagahama
safely, Genjurô and Tôbei do good business selling their
wares. Once he has his share of the earnings, Tôbei
abandons his wife and buys a suit of armour to that he can fulfil his
life's ambition, to become a samurai. Meanwhile,
Genjurô is visited by a beautiful young noblewoman, who requests
that he deliver several of his pots to her house, Kitsuki
Manor. At the house, Lady Wakasa tells Genjurô her sad
story, that she and her servant are the sole survivors of a raid by
soldiers. The spirit of her dead father haunts the house and
persuades her that she must marry Genjurô...
© James Travers
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