Following up on my post above..... I wrote a review/thoughts on the Mizguchi Eclipse set over three years ago. I am reposting it here for anyone interested. There are no spoilers, I wrote about the themes, how the films provide commentary on Japanese society through examination of their characters' lives, their place in Japanese film history, and why the four films in the set resonated with me. The Mizoguchi Eclipse set also makes a good companion piece with
Eclipse 28: The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara and
Eclipse 21: Oshima's Outlaw Sixties.
Eclipse 13: Kenji Mizoguchi's Fallen Women - The four films in this set feel very real and identifiable. Like many of the characters in the Oshima and Kurahara sets, the characters in the Mizoguchi set are living on the edges or the underbelly of society. There are two pre-war and two post-war films in the set. As the title suggests, the subject matter is fallen women, how they got there, how their lives play out, and how they are viewed by others. Mizoguchi does a masterful job of exposing some of the darker aspects of Japanese society, where geishas, consorts, and prostitutes are both revered and reviled, an element of the culture that is closer to the surface and more an accepted part of everyday life than in many Western countries.
One theme persistent through all four films is that many of these women got to be who and where they are through the callous actions of inconsiderate and selfishly manipulative men. With a few exceptions, the men involved are not consciously cruel or violent; in fact, none of them is exceptional in any way, which makes these films all the more hard hitting and socially enlightening. The men portrayed are ordinary, basically acting out their traditional roles in Japanese society.
Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion (1936) -
[Show spoiler]Both of these pre-war films are well done with engaging stories. One memorable character from Osaka Elegy is the father of one of the women, an oafish man whose bad financial decisions have led his daughter to support him any way she can, including compromising herself in a destructive relationship as the mistress of her boss. Despite the degradations she endures, the father shows no remorse or even recognition of his role in the whole mess. He despises her, as does her sister and brother.
One thing I liked is that both films offer time capsule views of Osaka before the war. Vibrant neon nights portrayed in black and white, details of the city streets, shops, and homes, music and puppetry performances, people interacting in every day exchanges, all of it has an intimacy to it similar to what I felt watching People on Sunday. There is no hint that Japan was in the death grip of militancy at that time, just richly detailed human stories set in urban environments.
Women of the Night (1948) –
[Show spoiler]This is a terrific and uncompromising hard-luck tale of two sisters trying to survive in the aftermath of Japan’s defeat in WWII. The film immediately establishes itself as noticeably darker in theme than the pre-war films. The story begins soon after the surrender, when soldiers and civilians posted in Korea and China are demobilizing and being repatriated home, many of them mental wrecks. One of the sisters is living with her in-laws while her husband is away overseas. She is caring for her own sick baby while helping to support her husband’s family, including a wastrel brother-in-law who is an ex-soldier drinking away bad memories instead of looking for work. About twenty minutes into the movie an event occurs that is immensely sad and moving, and the story shifts ahead a couple of years. I found Mizoguchi’s direction superb; he establishes so much human detail in the first minutes of the film that the viewer is swept away by unfolding events and plunged into the emotional turmoil that follows. This is an exceptional film, really well done.
Filmed a few years after the war, Women of the Night has little of the urban vibrancy of the 1936 films. Dilapidated buildings and bombed-out rubble are the backdrop. Life is recovering, the Japanese are rebuilding, businesses are struggling and attempting to grow, but the economy is precarious. It would not be until the Korean War (1950-1953) that Japan roared back, and this film shows life on the ground in Osaka a couple of years before.
Street of Shame (1956) -
[Show spoiler]Absolutely brilliant!! A masterpiece of Japanese cinema. Street of Shame does not focus on one main character; instead, it is an ensemble piece letting us peek into the lives of five prostitutes working in the same brothel. The events portrayed occur during a time when Japanese society is changing in its views toward prostitution. Society is becoming less accepting of the practice and even debating a bill in Parliament to close the “comfort” houses. The debate is a morality campaign and part of a larger attempt to purify the image and improve the standing of comfort women in Japan by making prostitutes seek more useful and what is seen as less degrading employment. Mizoguchi's subtle direction shows how misguided these attempts are, that while seemingly well intentioned they are in fact causing misery and even greater despair and hardship in the lives of the women.
Mizoguchi also shows us a social consciousness driven by a male dominated interpretation of female morality, making us understand that not much will change in these women’s prospects even if the new law passes. The women themselves recognize they have no skills that can gain them employment that pays anything close to prostitution, and yet they are trapped in a world of exploitation, perpetually in debt to men, whether it is the brothel owner, a husband who is unable to work, or a father who has enormous financial burdens.
There is so much depth of character in this film that each of the women stands on her own. One is a she-devil who uses her customers for financial gain to the point of ruining their lives, yet she is coldly calculating and perhaps the smartest of them all. Another is older, aware of her fading looks, and trying to maintain a relationship with a teenage son who cannot understand what she has gone through in life and hates her for being a prostitute despite all she has sacrificed for him. Another is a loving mother and wife, forced to make as much money as she can with her limited job prospects to support an unemployed husband and their baby. The husband is mentally defeated in his outlook on life, suicidal, and suffering from a sickness requiring expensive medicine. His problems are not specifically diagnosed in the film, but he appears to be a war veteran suffering from malaria and post-traumatic stress.
The ending of Street of Shame is one of the greatest I have ever seen in a film. Simply devastating in its quiet, dramatic impact.
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