★ 6 / 10
As this film opens, Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka), a
R T
As this film opens, Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka), a 50 year old prostitute, goes into a Buddhist temple and looks back at her life. We see that she was once loved…
As this film opens, Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka), a 50 year old prostitute, goes into a Buddhist temple and looks back at her life. We see that she was once loved, but because her young suitor (the great Toshiro Mifune) was of a lower caste, it was forbidden, resulting in her being banished and him being beheaded. As her family has been shamed, her father jumps on the chance to send her to a local Lord who is looking for a mistress who can be a surrogate mother. Unfortunately, she's abruptly dismissed after bearing him a son, and from there she steadily declines. The film was highly personal to director Kenji Mizoguchi since his own sister (who had raised him) was sold by their father to be a geisha, which is one of the things that happens to Oharu.
Like 'Ugetsu', the film Mizoguchi made the following year, 'The Life of Oharu' is a morality tale, and while it's less heavy-handed than 'Ugetsu', it is fairly melodramatic. The central message is one of Buddhist compassion, and not just for those who we know have had a sad, unfair life - but also those who appear derelict or decrepit to us, and who we might otherwise judge, not knowing what they've experienced. While there is depth to that message, and it's certainly nice seeing a film that empathizes with woman and the misogyny they endure, 'The Life of Oharu' is dark and hard to watch for 148 minutes. The plot is quite linear and we see her used and abused in every single societal role she plays: daughter, lover, concubine, courtesan, wife, nun, and common prostitute. I also don't think Tanaka was well utilized in this role - she simply doesn't look young enough in early scenes, or old enough in later scenes. The filmmaking is good and the film has a solid place in film history for its message, but it's too bleak, and too simplistically so, for a film of this length.
★ 10 / 10
Mizoguchi Kenji confirms himself as the most authoritative
Alvise F
Mizoguchi Kenji confirms himself as the most authoritative voice of women's struggles in Japanese cinema. The unlucky vicissitudes of his heroines are always…
Mizoguchi Kenji confirms himself as the most authoritative voice of women's struggles in Japanese cinema.
The unlucky vicissitudes of his heroines are always bound to an accurate critic analysis of the Era in which they take place: a ruthless world when the women are easy targets of men's tyranny and violence, ending up falling out of favor or even sacrifice their lives.
Although the women efforts to improve their status, they are unable to escape their sad fate and their tragic destiny is to succumb to pitiless Japanese patriarchy society.
The pessimist vision of Mizoguchi's work founds its aesthetic perfection in frequent long-shots, that accompanying the subjects' sufferings keeping the camera on a respectful distance.
The protagonists are also in persistent struggle with a constant of Japanese cinema: the "social obligation" and the "human emotion", in Japanese respectively "giri" (義理) and "ninjō" (人情).
The heroines' choices are always conditioned by this principle: forced to suppress their feelings and sacrifice themselves to maintain the social order that wants them submissive and oppressed.
Mizoguchi could be considered a feminist author, nevertheless, his stories merely represent brutal reality as well as it is, without committing to actively change it.
His works are permeated by a negative fatalism that leaves no hope to the audience.
★ 9 / 10
Wow, Oharu has it pretty rough in this
william d
Wow, Oharu has it pretty rough in this well-made, 17th century Japanese chick flick.
Wow, Oharu has it pretty rough in this well-made, 17th century Japanese chick flick.
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i liked her in Star Trek