How sad is this?

Best movie ever!

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Not even Lars von Trier can get to dramaturgy this depressing about a woman's decay of a life and horrendous bad luck. Yet Kenji Mizoguchi keeps things engrossing just because this character of Oharu is a smart, empathetic character, and the idea of a person having no real rights but only owners really is something that should go past simple feminist statements. at the same time I think, coming as it does in post war Japan in 1952, its the director via the book saying, look, don't take ANY freedoms for granted. not a shot is wasted here (even if one or two go just a bit longer than necessary, it's fine though, von Trier does worse).And it all amounts to a moral plea, that even in the system of owners and property and where money is king (not queen), you still make choices to be decent or indecent, and that perceptions shouldn't be just taken at face value. If there is any big lesson to take away it's that so much horror that can befall a good person is someone's first impression and lack of critical thinking. Indeed, it's shot with an uncanny ability to focus on major points in seemingly small moments- when the one man is looking about at all the Kyoto girls and none fit his strict standards for his master's breeding needs, the shot tracks along as he is looking at them all slowly, and it ends with the shot showing all the girls looking at the man like 'what did we do wrong?' But the performances are all strong (if, yeah, melodramatic as hell at times, it is Japanese neo-realism to an extent).And of course the inimitable Toshiro Mifune steals his precious scenes and helps to add to the initial trauma for Oharu- when you lose a man like that, it's all downhill from there perhaps.

Mizoguchi's empathy for female characters is legendary. The Life of Oharu is one outstanding example. One woman's journey from member of the imperial court to elderly streetwalker is narrated in exquisite, shimmering, painful style. Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka) is seduced by a man below her station. Her crime is to love the man back unreservedly. That action becomes the catalyst for a series of degradations punctuated by false dawns, as Oharu's life spirals to rock bottom. And as bleak and depressing as that sounds, Mizoguchi's storytelling, combined with Tanaka's dignified portrayal, make this film cathartic, a tragedy with a small, life-affirming message at its heart. It is a cautionary tale to the follies of social mores, and the burden that women through the ages have to endure. More than that, it is a tale of one woman's dignity through the most humiliating of circumstances. Stunning.

Being a huge fan of Ozu and Kurosawa I finally came around to watching Kenji Mizoguchi's films. Unfortunately here in the UK only two are available. However I am very lucky that this is one of them 'Life of Oharu' is a stunning feature film, one which could never be matched in todays cinema. Kinuyo Tanaka takes on the daunting task of portraying a tragic, complex and engrossing character. Oharu spans from the ages of 18-50 and Tanaka manages to pull off convincing performances at all these ages. We are taken through (as the title would suggest) the life of a young woman named Oharu. It begins with Oharu as an old woman, a fifty year old prostitute who has problems getting clients. She enters a temple one night and remembers her first love, and the start of her descent. Her first love is forbidden as she is from a well respected family and he is a poor and humble samurai. He is executed and she and her parents are banished, in a truly moving scene the family follows them over a bridge and are told they may go no further. Next Oharu is hired as a concubine to a powerful lord. She bears him a child, but she is soon thrown out as she becomes attached to the child. Wherever she looks for love she fails, with a husband who is killed and a life that just spirals into oblivion. What makes this film so tragic is that Oharu is completely innocent, falling victim to love that is beyond her control. Like all great tragedies we know what is to come, and it is the inability to stop it that drags the audience in. Mizoguchi's beautifully composed a masterpiece here. A great film that has a well rounded set of characters that in any other episodic drama such as this may seem hollow. Mizoguchi handles each important moment in Oharu's life with complete confidence and artistic control. There are also a number of comic scenes that help ease the depression and show that life is not always doom and glume. The film doesn't preach or hammer home its point, it shows what happens and subtly gets its point across. One of the best films I have ever seen and a real treat for any film fan. Don't let this one escape you, and I can only hope more of Mizoguchi's films are released on these shores.

A great film, but why do all the reference books etc. insist that Oharu's lover Katsunosuke is played by Toshiro Mifune? It's a completely different actor! Mifune's face appears superimposed on a statue at the beginning, but that's the only appearance he makes! Not even the Japan experts like Donald Richie seem to have picked this up.Apart from that, the great Kinuyo Tanaka puts in a heartrending performance as the eponymous Oharu, in what must be the most passionately feminist film ever made (Mizoguchi and Dreyer are the two great feminist directors). There are also a couple of intensely comic scenes, not what one expects from Mizoguchi.But I'm still waiting for an explanation about Mifune, and who the actor is who plays Katsunosuke!