Ugetsu

If I were to say the name "Ugetsu" to anyone I know, I would probably see many confused looks on those people's faces. So is the problem with the filmography of one Kenji Mizoguchi, one of the great filmmakers of any time, who's films are praised by anyone who has seen them, yet is still relatively anonymous to the greater movie going public. Before I talk about "Ugetsu", it might help to put the film and Mizoguchi in context. Kenji Mizoguchi is often heralded as one of Japan's three master filmmakers, the other two being Akira Kurosawa, and Yasujiro Ozu; Kurosawa has been the most well-known through western audiences gaining popularity with films like "Rashomon", "Seven Samurai", winning a Best foreign film Oscar for the former. Ozu has been gaining more and more popularity over the years since being introduced to western audiences in the late 1970s, his "Tokyo Story" recently topped the 2012 BFI Greatest films list chosen by directors.

I'm waiting for the day Mizoguchi gets his due, he was known for his long uninterrupted camera movements, which got a nickname known as "scroll shots". The camera was never used to show off, but created a poetry with its motion, sometimes flowing from one scene to another. Compare this to Ozu who took the alternative route and hardly even moved his camera, but still captured a different kind of poetry within his compositions.

Another characteristic of Mizoguchi was his use of women as his main protagonists, usually depicting them in a tragic light, undone either by society or men, and usually succumb to life in brothels as a geisha or a prostitute. These instances were probably most realized in his modern day films "Osaka Elegy" and "Streets of Shame" (His last film), and his historical masterpiece "The Life of Oharu" (For my money, his best film).

With "Ugetsu", Mizoguchi is working with a historical setting, and the story is made up as a fable. It tells the parallel stories of ambitious men during wartime, and the tragic price their wives have to pay for it. Mizoguchi opens the film in a glorious crane shot of a poor farming village, as it focuses in on the main characters. We meet Genjuro (Masayuki Mori) a potter who has high hopes to make his fortune with his bowls, pots, and vases. He is seen loading up a carriage full of his pottery to sell, however his wife Myagi (Kinuyo Tanaki), wants him to stay and watch over her and their child. There has been talk of a war and fear that soldiers could raid their village. Genjuro doesn't seem too concerned about this and forges on ahead to make his fortune. Assisting Genjuro with selling his pottry, is a local farmer Tobei (Eitaro Ozawa), who also has eyes on becoming a great samurai; he is rejected for not having a suit of armor, and thought of as a common baggar, but he becomes comically insistent that he must be one. Tobei's wife Ohama (Mitsuko Mito) is not amused by this and discourages him in not going with Genjuro, but he does anyway.

Genjuro returns with a handful of gold, while Tobei mindlessly follows his pursuit in becoming a samurai. Genjuro becomes blinded by the gold he has received and decides to move him and his family to the big city where he's sure to achieve more wealth. Soon an army does come, and after his latest supply of pottery is almost destroyed, Genjuro decides to leave by boat to avoid any further danger; Tobei and Ohama also come along on the trip.

We go to the group of them on the boat, with one of the most famous scenes in the film, Mizoguchi creates an atmospheric setting full of darkness and fog, as the boat approaches another ship that is drifting. There they meet a dying sailor who warns them of pirates, and tells Genjuro and Tobei to protect their wives. Genjuro becomes worried for Myagi, and they head back so she can stay and protect their son, he continues on ahead with Tobei and Ohama.

While in the city, Genjuro sells his pottery fairly soon to a mysterious beautiful woman known as Lady Wakasa (Machiko Kyo), meanwhile Tobei has run off when he sees a samurai, and follows him on. Ohama tries to stop him, but she is left behind. After witnessing a samurai cut off the head of a famous general, Tobei kills him from behind and takes the head for his own glory. He is then given his glory of samurai with armor and a horse, but after he and some soldiers stop in a brothel, he is shocked to find Ohama working there as a prostitute; earlier after Tobei abandoned her, she was attacked and raped by a group of soldiers.

Meanwhile Genjuro has become enamored by Lady Wakasa, she prompts him to come to her castle, where he is seduced by her. She is in fact a ghost who has mesmerized Genjuro as if he were in a dream, his reality being altered. Meanwhile, we cut back to Myagi, hiding with her child in her village, trying to escape from soldiers.

"Ugetsu" follows the same wavelength as many of Mizoguchi's films, in the way it depicts women as victims especially in the instance where men are the primary decision makers. Genjuro and Tobei are able to follow their ambitions and temptations without any thought of consequence. Both Myagi and Ohama are seen as level headed women, what they say makes good sense. Myagi in particular is the loyal wife, who questions what her husband does, but she is dutiful in following him even if it might not be the best idea to leave his wife and child alone to fend for themselves.

Although the film is technically a fable with supernatural elements, the core story seems very real, and the tragic consequences are heartbreaking. This is mostly due to Mizoguchi's humanistic point of view of his characters; he treats them like real people in real situations, we see Genjuro being seduced by a ghost and in a dream state., but we know far away Myagi is in a very real world of war and poverty. When Genjuro finally is released from the Lady Wakasa's castle, he returns to the real world in shambles, being accused as a thief and losing all of his money.

You sense that Mizoguchi has a deep sympathy with these sort of people who are bereft of riches and must live in war and poverty, it's no wonder the men dream of bigger things for themselves and their family. It is after all established that what Genjuro and Tombei are doing to somewhat selfish, but they are also doing it to show their wives they can be bigger men than what they are. They simply do not realize their wives love them as they are already; Genjuro thinks that he can impress Myagi with fancy cloth, but he does not understand when she says that the cloth means less than his love for her.

But this is also a beautiful dream like film, that seems to float as if it's all a dream. Take the scenes with Lady Wakasa which Mizoguchi films mostly in shadows, framing the mysterious house like a gothic castle. Japanese architecture seems to be made for filmmaking with its use of sliding door frames, and boxed in rooms, Mizoguchi seems to move the camera throughout these rooms very serpent like that seems forbidding, but also enticing.

But it's really the way Mizoguchi uses the camera to give off an emotional response that makes him such a master. There is a shot near the end of the film where Genjuro comes home to Myagi that is quite simply the most elating, and heartbreaking shot in all of film. Without giving much away, I would just say that a shot such as this that can restore faith in film as a great artform, and it could not be achieved without the right movement of the camera, the atmosphere of the scene, and the performances, they all seem to come together perfectly in a symphonic way; a transcendence that can only be felt when at the hands of a master.

When talking about Kenji Mizoguchi, I only regret not knowing more about him; I know him from his films, which are mostly unfortunately unavailable. For its part, Criterion has released seven of his films, all of which are worth seeing, the other titles along with "Ugetsu" are "Osaka Elegy", "The Sisters of Gion", "Women of the Night", "The Life of Oharu", "Sansho the Baliff", and "Streets of Shame". Each film is insightful, heartbreaking, and beautiful. I predict more titles to be released by Mizoguchi soon, and hopefully like Ozu, a re-evaluation of his films are on the horizon. It was said that Mizoguchi dedicated his life to his art, a constant perfectionist who demanded no less from the people he worked with; what a shame it would be to miss his work, or to see it fade away.