"The finest silk Of choicest hue May change and fade away; As would my life, My beloved, If thou shouldst...

A timeless classic | Ugetsu - Criterion Collection | Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô

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	• Ugetsu - Criterion Collection Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô Criterion Collection, 2005 average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

a yin yang film

The concept of yin and yang describes the interconnectedness of opposites:
for example, light an dark, male and female, contraction ( yin) and expansion ( yang). It applies as well to social constructions such as good and evil, rich and poor, honor and dishonor. Applied to life, the concept can be a warning about the consequences of living on the edge. Extreme good will turn to evil; extreme wealth to poverty; extreme honor to dishonor, and so on. In the dance of these interacting forces, the best spot to be is in the center because the center is balance, peace, well-being. Only in the center can creation take place; only in balance can a human being exist in the present moment, unburdened of future tasks and past regrets.

Of course in the unfolding of life there is constant interplay between yin and yang. Yang gathers. Yin disperses. The interplay guarantees growth, change, and evolution. Remain balanced during all of this shifting is indeed a challenge. Sometimes individuals are pushed about by the forces of the universe, such as happens in periods of war. This is what happens to simple, good men and women in the celebrated Japanese film, Ugetsu. Watching the film from a yin and yang perspective, viewers reap a sense of forgiveness. A forgiveness given by the higher ups who made the film-- let's call it universal consciousness-- to the simple men and women of Japan who participated in any way whatsoever, in the horrors of World War II.

Kenji Mizoguchi made the film in 1953, eight years after Hiroshima and Japan's surrender. Rather than deal with modern war and forgiveness, he set his film in medieval Japan. The story is based on a popular Japanese Fairy tale.

A Quick synopsis: Genjuro is a potter who longs for wealth and luxury, while Tobei a farmer, dreams of the glories of the samurai. The two of them take off to the town of Nagahama to sell their wares, leaving their wives, Miyagi and hama, behind in a small village. War rages around them. The men run into its jaws, looking for opportunity; the women want to hide and grasp safety. War is an extreme. It pushes people off balance, causes them to live on the edge.

Genjuro ends up in complete expansion. In t Nagahama, he not only finds success in selling his wares, he also ends up in a place of extreme luxury and in the arms of beautiful Lady Wakasa. . "I never knew such pleasures existed," he says. Lady Wakasa convinces him to marry her.

Through efforts not his own, Tobei, who is a fool, ends up with the decapitated head of a powerful general. As his reward, the general of the opposing forces appoints Tobei a samurai and gives him a battalion of men. Tobei ends up in complete contraction: hard, a warrior.

The wives meet similar extremes: while her Genjuro is slothfully indulging in sake and food, Miyaki starves and is killed for a rice cake. Ohama, Tobei's wife, is raped by soldiers and descends into a life of a prostitution.The Virgin Knows: an art theft thriller

Wheels of yin and yang continue to turn, with each scene fluidly finding it's complement, or opposite. Night scenes cut to day scenes. Scenes of the wife splice to scene of husband. Fire to water. Ghost to reality. Dream to wakefulness. The men's restless acquisitive nature and woman's homing instinct force dance inside war.

In the end of the film, when war comes to a close, life adjusts. We're back in the village. The characters must forgive each other to find their balance. The last scene sums it up: Genjuro stands at his potter's wheel, centering his clay, creating.

Why yin and yang? The Japanese people had to pick up and go on, accept that war pushes them off balance, and realize that they might have made foolish mistakes but now, in the present, it was their responsibility to find the center, live in balance.

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"The finest silk Of choicest hue May change and fade away; As would my life, My beloved, If thou shouldst prove untrue..."

Of over 80 films that Kenji Mizoguchi had made during his lifetime (1898-1956) only about a dozen had made their way to the West. Three of them, "Song of Oharu," (1952), "Ugetsu Monogatari" (1953), and Sansho the Bailiff (1954) won the Silver Lion, the grand prize at Venice Film Festival three years in a row. There is no director before or after Mizoguchi who has ever achieved the same honors. I've only seen one Mizoguchi's film so far; Ugetsu Monogatori/Tales of Ugetsu / Tales of a Pale and Mysterious Moon After the Rain (1953) but this is enough to realize why the critics and viewers keep naming it one of the greatest of all films, beautiful, timeless, and magnificent masterpiece. It is all of the above, and it has achieved all of the superlatives being seemingly simple and rather short. This is the movie that takes place in the medieval Japan in the 16 Century when country was torn by the feudal wars. It focuses on the lives and ways of two country men, the brothers, and their families. Blending artfully and seamlessly the long passed history, the supernatural ghost stories, the elegiac poem, and not turning away from the scenes of brutal reality and violence, Mizoguchi created the film of serene elegance, mesmerizing beauty, and timeless humanity. Ugetsu is the heartbreaking story of wrong ambitions that blind the men, make them take for granted the most precious treasures in their life and forsake them for chasing the ghosts of fame, greed, and sensual pleasures. It is about non replaceable losses, guilt, and regrets. It is about redemption and forgiveness. Ugetsu is the film which sympathizes and sides with the most oppressed and suffering members in Japanese society - the women. Mizoguchi shows them loving, loyal, noble, and devoted. Their love, understanding and forgiveness are boundless. Ugetsu is a perfect work of art, like an ancient marble statue. There are no unnecessary elements or shots or images in there. It is as precise and impressive in its imagery as the classical Japanese short poems, haiku and tanka. Everything is of exquisite taste, perfect measure, elegant composition, and subtlety. I've seen many films in my life but after watching Ugetsu Monogatari I want to exclaim together with one of the characters, "I never suspected such pleasures existed".

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A timeless classic

It was hard for me to decide which of Mizoguchi's 2 masterpieces UGETSU or SANSHO THE BAILIFF was the greater film. Let's just say they are 1 and 1A in that order. UGETSU monogatari is on many film critic's lists as one of the top 10 films ever made, and for good reason. The shear beauty of it is one thing. A while back I went to an exhibition of early 20th century Shin Hanga woodblock prints. Watching UGETSU is like seeing these marvelous works of art come to life. The scenes in the Wakasa manor between Genjuro and Lady Wakasa's spirit are some of the most gorgeous moments ever committed to celluloid. The whole movie is an eye pleasing treasure, but aside from the pure aesthetics, UGETSU is a wonderful fable, a moving allegory of Buddhist principles that has a timeless relevance found only in the greatest visions of the masters.
UGETSU or SANSHO? Decisions, decisions..both are true masterpieces..movies that must be seen..timeless art from one of the great directors at the height of his powers.

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ghost story

A fabulous tale of folly and redemption set against the massive disruptions that were the Japanese Civil Wars, with roving bands of marauding soldiers...theft, rape, destruction and starvation.

Two brothers in a humble village discover that they can make a significnat amount of money by selling their rather special pottery in surrounding towns and cities. First, however, and against the advice of their wives, they have to get their through cordons of ravaging enemy soldiers.

The result is tragedy but of a unique, definitely haunting type. The one brother, perhaps the least intelligent, has his heart on becoming a samurai. He does so, and by a set of fortuitous circumstances, becomes not only a samurai but a great war leader and lord. His price is high. His abandoned wife is gang raped and ends up as a prostitute. Her samurai husband discovers her...quite accidentally...working in the humiliation that is a brothel.

The other brother's experience is far more mystical. A beautiful lady...one of the few survivors of her clan following battles with a rival clan...inexplicably falls in love with the pottery maker and, without asking questions, marries him immediately. The woman is delicate and ethereal and for good reason. She is the ghost of a young woman killed along with the rest of her clan. The ghost of her devoted maid takes her back into the world of light so that she can experience the love of a man. She succeeds but, a soldier alerts our brother to the fact that his wife is a ghost and covers his body with Sanskrit curses to protect him.

The two ghosts are appalled and try to get him to remove them so that he can live eternally with them in the afterworld. He refuses to find himself left in the ruins of a burned out house.

He returns home to be greeted by his real wife and son only to learn, the next morning, that the woman who had greeted him the previous night has been dead...killed by soldiers...for weeks. She's a ghost, too.

The similarity between the second brother's tale and the tale of Odysseus with Circe is perhaps coincidental but all the more haunting because of it. A great film.

Ron

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SIMPLY THE BEST

Calling this film a "movie" is like calling the Mona Lisa a "painting". Heartbreakingly gorgeous from start to finish, this masterwork has no equal in the film arts. And, it just keeps getting better every time you see it. Ugetsu is not only a great moral fable, but also a spooky ghost story and an unparalled tearjerker (for me, anyway). Since I've seen this film many dozens of times--the floodgates open with the credits. There is a sense of terrible dread and foreboding during the first half and incredible creepiness in the other. But above all there is a mythic, ethereal beauty in every frame that I have never seen in any other film. This is truly one for the ages.

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The great Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi's crowning achievement, set in sixteenth-century Japan, a period of bloody civil war, and focusing on an ambitious potter haunted by a beautiful ghost and a farmer who dreams of becoming a samurai. A classic com