Chikamatsu Monogatari, 1954
[A Story by Chikamatsu/Crucified Lovers]
In
1683 Kyoto, at the house of Ishun (Eitarô Shindô)
the grand scroll maker, the printers are busy assembling
the calendars for the imperial court in the absence of their
senior artist, a diligent and conscientious worker named Mohei
(Kazuo
Hasegawa). Suffering from a lingering cold, Mohei has been working
from the privacy of his room, attended to by an attractive
and modest young housemaid, Otama (Yôko Minamida). Otama's
beauty has not escaped the roving eye of the master of the house
and, at every given opportunity, Ishun exploits his privilege in
order to proposition Otama into becoming his mistress. In an attempt
to gently rebuff Ishun's inappropriate advances (while retaining
her meager employment), Otama claims to be promised in marriage to
Mohei - a declaration that Ishun meets with initial
skepticism. Meanwhile, Ishun's wife, Osan (Kyôko Kagawa),
encumbered with her family's entreaties to borrow money from her
husband in order to settle her irresponsible brother, Doki's (Haruo
Tanaka) debts, seeks assistance from Mohei in an attempt to mitigate
her mounting
financial
obligation
to her calculating husband. In order to raise the money,
Mohei devises a plan to use Ishun's blank official seal in order
to borrow five kans of silver from the treasury with the intention
of replacing the money expeditiously, but is interrupted by a co-worker
who attempts to coerce Mohei into withdrawing an additional sum from
the dubious transaction. Unwilling to yield to extortion, Mohei
decides to reveal his intent to Ishun in the hopes of gaining sympathy,
but is met with violence and threats of prosecution by a vengeful
Ishun who believes that Mohei's actions were motivated by his intent
to redeem Otama from the household, and consequently, his oppressive
control. Fearing arrest and determined to keep his promise of financial
support to Osan, Mohei decides to escape detention and flee from
the daimyo.
Adapted from the bunraku play by Genroku-era
(1688-1703) dramatist, Monzaemon Chikamatsu, Crucified Lovers is
a spare, evocative, and
haunting portrait on the tragedy of love, duty, honor, and conformity
in repressive society. By retaining the interiority and restrictive
movement of jojuri puppet theater (visually emphasized through Mizoguchi's
familiar elements of rectangular compositions and movement along
the diagonal of the screen), Kenji Mizoguchi captures the pervasive
sense of confinement and rigidity of social conduct ingrained in
Japanese culture. Initially presenting Osan, Otama, and Mohei through
parallel interior shots of Ishun's feudal estate, Mizoguchi illustrates
their metaphoric - and inescapable - bounds of gender and socio-economic
class: Osan's framing against window bars as Doki pays a visit that
cuts to an image of a homebound, recuperating Mohei visited by Otama
in a small, upper storey room enclosed by shoji screens, then cuts
back to Osan, now listening to the ingratiating entreaties of her
mother to curry favor from Ishun in order to save the family's reputation.
Mizoguchi further confines the action of the first part of the film
to predominantly interior locations (with the notable exceptions
of Ishun's entrance through an escorted cab, and a subsequent crane
shot of anonymous, disgraced lovers paraded through the street on
the way to their public crucifixion) in order to contrast the subsequent "liberation" of
Mohei and Osan as they flee to Kyoto, and eventually, to the rural
countryside (visually distilled into the ethereality of Mohei and
Osan's boat drifting down the river). By reflecting the figurative
captivity and marginalization innate in a stratified class structure
and accepted hypocrisy of the objectified role of women in society,
Crucified Lovers serves as a sublime
and provocative testament to the cultural legacy of codified behavior
and tolerated inhumanity.
© Acquarello 2003. All rights
reserved.
Sonosuke
Asai (Benkei Shiganoya), the manager of a pharmaceutical company,
begins each morning with a familiar ritual: selfishly praying for
"wealth and health"; harshly berating the servants; complaining of
his wife's (Yoko Umemura) untraditional behavior. Yet, having married
into prominence and career, he is unable to censure her conduct, and
is compelled to submit to her authority. Frustrated by his loveless
and subservient home life, Asai has turned his attention towards a
young, attractive telephone switchboard operator named Ayako (Isuzu
Yamada). Ayako's father, a cowering, yet boastful office worker named
Junzo Murai (Seiichi Takegawa) has embezzled money from his employer
in a failed attempt at stock trading. Unable to return the missing
funds, Murai has been evading company officials who have threatened
legal action for the theft. Despite Ayako's developing feelings for
a meek, devoted clerk named Nishimura (Kensaku Hara), she moves out
of the family home, leaves her job, and reluctantly agrees to become
Asai's mistress in exchange for settling her father's financial transgression.
However, as Asai's wife becomes increasingly suspicious of her husband's
extramarital affair, Asai is compelled to sever his relations with
Ayako. Abandoned by her benefactor, unwilling to return home, and
faced with incessant pleas for financial assistance for her brother,
Hiroshi's (Shinpachiro Asaka) college tuition, Ayako turns to the
streets.
In
the feudal society of 1701 Japan, the samurai code of honor is slowly
becoming irrelevant as provincial laws, nepotism, and bureaucracy
replace ritual and tradition. The elder ceremonial lord, Kira (Mantoyo
Mimasu), fails to instruct Lord Asano (Yoshizaburo Arashi) on proper
court etiquette (primarily due to Lord Asano's oversight in offering
a bribe to the corrupt Kira), and openly insults the young lord.
In a fit of anger, Lord Asano slightly wounds Kira, and is sent
before the court for judgment. The court has relational ties to
Kira, and exacts a swift, severe punishment for the unrepentant
Lord Asano to commit hara-kiri (ritual suicide). Lord Asano's house
is abolished, his property is confiscated, and his samurais are
reduced to the ignominious state of ronin (masterless samurai).
Lord Asano's most trusted samurai, Chamberlain Oishi (Chojuro Kawarasaki)
petitions for the restoration of the house under Lord Asano's brother,
a futile request designed to conceal the samurais' blood pact to
avenge Lord Asano's disgrace. But in an unexpected turn of events,
the petition draws public support, and the samurais are forced to
await its final outcome before plotting their course of action.
Meanwhile, Oishi's reputation becomes tarnished as he is compelled
to act out a charade of disinterest and self-service in order to
cast off suspicion for his ulterior motive - to lead the samurais
into a final, noble act of vengeance.
Utamaro
and His Five Woman
In
17th century Kyoto, a beautiful, young lady-in-waiting, Oharu (Kinuyo
Tanaka), falls in love with a low ranking page, Katsunosuke, (Toshiro
Mifune). During a raid on a local lodging house, their affair is
discovered, leading to her family's exile, and Katsunosuke's execution.
When Lord Matsudaira (Toshiaki Konoe) dispatches an attendant from
Edo to seek out a concubine to bear an heir and successor, Oharu's
father (Ichiro Sugai), obligingly offers his daughter for the ignominious
task, believing that her services would bring him financial gain
and favors from the court. In a subtly poignant, emotionally revealing
scene, Lady Matsudaira (Hisako Yamane), is resigned to receive Oharu
in court during the evening's entertainment, attempting to mask
her shame and contempt for her husband's new mistress. After the
birth of a son, Oharu's station in Lord Matsudaira's court proves
temporary, as the council decides to send her back for fear of the
lord's growing fondness for her. Oharu's father, who had grown accustomed
to living beyond his means, is financially unprepared for Oharu's
homecoming, and promptly sells his daughter to a geisha house. Inevitably,
even Oharu's marriage to an honest, good hearted fan maker, Yakichi
(Jukichi Uno), and postulancy at a Buddhist temple prove fleeting,
and she is cast into the street. Alone and destitute, she resorts
to prostitution.
In
the provincial village of Ohmi, in the era of the Countries in
War 
A
naive, idealistic young woman named Eiko (Ayako Wakao) ventures into
the Gion district in search of her late mother's geisha "sister"
- an independent-minded, and old-fashioned geisha named Miyoharu (Michiyo
Kogure). Shamed by her uncle for her disreputable social status and
disowned by her burdensome, ailing father, Sawamoto (Eitaro Shindo),
Eiko has turned to Miyoharu in the hopes of following in her mother's
footsteps. Unable to secure a guarantee from Sawamoto, Miyoharu 
