A thematically potent, haunting masterpiece, from some of the most gifted filmmakers in the prolific history of Japanese cinema.
Lead by the
three-headed, six-winged titan of
Akira Kurosawa,
Yasujirō Ozu, and
Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese cinema rose from the ashes of a devastated postwar Japan and soared to sublime heights during the
1950s, a decade that, similar to Mizoguchi, does not get the widespread artistic reverence that it deserves. While Kurosawa was the most influential of the three, and Ozu the most innovative, the outspoken Mizoguchi created some of the most political and socially critical films of the first half of the 20th century, filling his movies with powerful
themes that still resound today.
In 1936, with his incredibly talented writing partner
Yoshikata Yoda, Kenji Mizoguchi created two of his most acclaimed films:
Sisters of the Gion and
Osaka Elegy. Fiercely anti-patriarchal, these two stories address male hypocrisy, female subjugation, and the plights of sex workers. The films not only shed an empathetic light on (non-forced) sex work, but they also argue for the rights of sex workers, asserting that those performing it should be treated with the same dignity and respect as any other person or profession – a claim that’s still seen as one of the more radical aspects of feminism in the 21st century, and must have been brain-meltingly subversive in the 1930s.
The former two of these themes continue in Mizoguchi’s fantasy-drama masterpiece,
Ugetsu, a haunting ghost story steeped in anti-war messages. Based on two short tales from
Ueda Akinari’s 1776
anthology, Ugetsu tells the story of two couples attempting to make a living amid the many civil wars in
16th century Japan, as roving bands of samurai terrorize the countryside.
Genjūrō is a potter who believes he can make a profit from all the upheaval, and his occasional assistant Tōbei dreams of becoming a samurai himself. While selling their wares in the city, Tōbei runs off with his share of the profit to buy a suit of armor and weaponry in order to fulfill his militaristic aspirations, eventually becoming a high-ranking samurai through underhanded opportunism, and Genjūrō falls in love with a noblewoman who purchases a few pieces of pottery from him, although there may be more to the woman than meets the eye #SheDead. As both men blindly chase their own lusts and ambitions, their wives (Miyagi and Ohama), abandoned and alone, are forced to fend for themselves against the violence of the endless waves of enemy soldiers sweeping through their villages: conditions entirely absent of the glory or the lavish intimacy their husband’s impulsively disregarded them for. Genjūrō and Tōbei are far from being outright cruel men, but in the circumstances, their blithe passivity is just as detrimental as the actions of the sadistic samurai.
Like the film’s director (and screenwriter), Ugetsu’s cinematographer
Kazuo Miyagawa does not get the wide recognition today that his astounding filmography should have earned him. A frequent collaborator with Mizoguchi, Miyagwa worked with each head of the
titan in turn, as well as many other of his country’s most celebrated directors throughout the 20th century, and, along with those directors, is directly responsible for a substantial portion of Japanese cinema’s most breathtaking images. Though his name is not mentioned nearly as much as his Western contemporaries, within his field Miyagawa is considered one of the most influential artists to ever step behind a camera, and his exquisite deep focus photography served beautifully for Mizoguchi to harness those immersive spaces and turn each frame into a story in itself with his insightful and intuitive staging.
The duo’s technical mastery and artistic vision are intoxicating to watch in Ugetsu, where the camera’s gliding, ghostlike movements give the film’s atmosphere an ethereality, contrasting with the texture-filled compositions that leap off of the screen, lending each scene weight and immediacy: superbly communicating the story’s blend of folkloric fantasy and real-world trauma.
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