Ugetsu Monogatari + Oyu-Sama (Masters of Cinema)

Star Review

Continuing its collection of major Kenji Mizoguchi releases bundled with lesser known treasures, The Masters of Cinema Series offers what may be Mizoguchi’s most critically acclaimed film, 1953’s Ugetsu Monogatari (aka Ugetsu), along with his adaptation of a story by popular novelist Junichiro Tanizaki (The Makioka Sisters), 1951’s Oyu-Sama (a.k.a. Miss Oyu).

Ugetsu is famed for its eerie, delicate atmosphere that makes the most of mist-enshrouded Lake Biwa, telling a story in which two 16th century peasants leave their wives in search of fortune and glory, but soon find that fate has a supernatural sense of justice. The plot is based on two Ueda Akinari stories, The Reed-Choked House and A Serpent’s Lust (both of which are included with this DVD), as well as a Guy de Maupassant character study, How He Got the Legion of Honour. It’s a film that so elegantly straddles realism and fantasy with inordinate mystic beauty – underlining the filmmaker’s recurring theme of the suffering of women and the futility of reckless ambition – that its dreamlike vision has haunted the top of critical lists for decades.

Oyu-Sama marks the beginning of Mizoguchi’s great collaborations with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Sansho Dayu, Chikamatsu Monogatari). Their films are renowned for their incomparable visual beauty, emphasizing fluid tracking shots and exquisite long takes. (One shot in Oyu-Sama lasts an impressive six minutes in its entirety.) In its treatment of a psychological melodrama (a young widow spurns a merchant suitor but then suggests that in order to live with her, he marry her chaste sister), the film highlights Mizoguchi’s increasing move from leftist engagement to a more transcendent view of suffering and loss. The filmmaker’s long fascination with desires of the heart versus the cruel forces of social expectation and power relations is vividly rendered, and Tanaka’s lead performance has been justly celebrated for its intelligence and subtle, ironic awareness.

Doug Cummings on 31st March 2008

View all 26 of Doug Cummings’s reviews

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Film Description

Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of the Rain and Moon) is a masterwork of Japanese cinema. Based on a pair of 18th century ghost stories by Ueda Akinari, the film's release continued Mizoguchi's introduction to the West, where it was nominated for an Oscar (for Best Costume Design) and won the the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion award (for Best Direction).

In 16th century Japan, amidst the pandemonium of civil war, potter Genjuro and samurai-aspirant Tobei set out with their wives in search of wealth and military glory, respectively. Two parallel tales ensue when the men are lured from their wives: Genjuro by the ghostly charm of Lady Wakasa, Tobei by the dream of military glory.

Famed for its meticulously orchestrated long takes and its subtle blending of realistic period reconstruction and lyrical supernaturalism, Ugetsu Monogatari is an intensely poetic tragedy that consistently features on polls of the best films ever made.

Another literary adaptation – this time of a story by one of Japan's modern literary masters, novelist Tanizaki Jun'ichiro – Mizoguchi's Oyu-sama (Miss Oyu) is a poignant and contemplative tale of two sisters and their ill-fated relationship with the same man. At the core is Mizoguchi-regular Tanaka Kinuyo (who also stars in Ugetsu Monogatari) as the eponymous Oyu, the older sister who allows marital customs to dictate the lives of those caught up in this complex love triangle.

Continuing the director's fascination with the relationship between affairs of the heart and the social mores that shape and sometimes destroy them, Mizoguchi transforms his subject matter into the realm of the transcendental through the use of long, mobile shots – an approach that reaches its apotheosis in a take of almost six minutes – infused with humanity and emotion.

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Not, perhaps, to everyone's taste, but these two stately-paced pieces of cinema are cogent reminders of just why Mizoguchi is held in such high esteem. Based on a pai... more >

Not, perhaps, to everyone's taste, but these two stately-paced pieces of cinema are cogent reminders of just why Mizoguchi is held in such high esteem. Based on a pair of 18th-century ghost stories, the appeal of these two remarkable films reaches out from the period in which they were made and the historical period in which they are set. < less

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DVD Extras

• 2 discs
• New film restorations of both films
• New and improved English subtitles
• Video discussions about both Ugetsu Monogatari and Oyu-sama by acclaimed Japanese film expert/critic, festival programmer, and filmmaker Tony Rayns
• Original theatrical trailers
• 56-page booklet featuring writing by Keiko I. McDonald (author of Mizoguchi and editor of Ugetsu) and award-winning translations of Ueda Akinari's 'The Reed-Choked House' and 'A Serpent's Lust', tales adapted by Mizoguchi in Ugetsu Monogatari.

Film Details

Cast

Kinuyo Tanaka, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Ozawa Sakae

Technical Details