120. Tale of The Last Chrisanthemums (残菊物語 Zangiku Monogatari) (1939)

Directed By Kenji Mizoguchi

Synopsis

A talentless actor is the adoptive son of a famous Kabuki actor. He leaves his family to be with his brother's wet nurse. He becomes a minor actor and eventuallty an itinerant one. This experience leads him to become a great actor and his wife make the ultimate sacrifice of leaving her husband so he can be successful in Tokyo again. When the actor comes back to his wife which his father has now accepted she is dying of tuberculosis and he is a star. While he bows to a loving public, she expires.

Review

I love Japanese cinema, but had not had the chance until now to watch any Kenji Mizoguchi films. Eclipsed by the fame of his contemporary Akira Korusawa, Mizoguchi was also numbered amongs the great Japanese directors, and the reason why is easy to see in this early work of his.

The story of the film is one of those big melodramas which we've all seen before, but the Japanese context of the story gives it an extra layer of alienness, the Kabuki settings and makeups, even the architecture transports you to another place and time. More than this, however Mizoguchi is an expert with his camera, his characrters shine on a scenery that makes great use of blank space, be it the Japanese tatami covered houses or the night scenes outside. Mizoguchi is also a lover of long takes, and some particularly good camera angles, like when the actor is running to see his wife near her death, transmiting a sense of urgency and despair.

The film is actually very long, about 2 and a half hours, but this helps you empathise with the characters and give you a sense of how long things took in the film's universe. A worthy film, but I am still expecting better things from Mizoguchi. Here's another film you can't get anywhere! Well actually you can download it off eMule and find a Spanish .srt file to go with it. This only works if you understand Japanese of Spanish however. A pity.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In his middle films, Mizoguchi began to be hailed as a director of "new realism": social documents of a Japan that is making its transition from feudalism into modernism. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939) won a prize with the Education Department; like the two abovementioned films, it explores the deprecatory role of women in an unfairly male-centered society. During this time, Mizoguchi also developed his famous "one-scene-one-shot" approach to cinema. The meticulousness and authenticity of his set designer Hiroshi Mizutani would contribute to Mizoguchi's frequent use of wide-angled lensing.

No clips of Zangiku Monogatari, but I can give you a clip of 1936's Osaka Elegy, another example of long takes and strong women by Mizoguchi: