The Life of Oharu 1952
Japanese filmmaker Mizoguchi Kenji (Sansho the Bailiff; Ugetsu) was in years of artistic decline due to a decade of being under the thumb of both studio rule and American post-war occupation when he realized this artistic triumph, The Life of Oharu (Saikaku Ichidai Onna,), which garnered him a Golden Lion at that year’s Venice Film Festival, just one year after countryman Kurosawa Akira took home the prize for his masterpiece Rashomon.

Like most of Mizoguchi's work, The Life of Oharu centres around a female protagonist (the titular Oharu, beautifully played by Kinuyo Tanaka) who is hard done by the men around her. The film opens to show her as an ageing prostitute, struggling to attract any customers on a cold night in 17th/18th Century Japan. Sheltering in a temple filled with statues of Buddha, one reminds her of a man from her past and she reminisces about how she ended up in this position.

We learn that she was once a noble woman, but her love for a lowly page, Katsunosuke (played by Toshiro Mifune), causes her and her family to be banished from the court and Katsunosuke executed. From here on out, Oharu is knocked further and further down the social strata as she is used and abused by those in power.


Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Tsukie Matsuura, Ichiro Sugai
Country: Japan
Genre: Drama

BD50, DVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC 4:3 | 02:16:52 | 43.3 Gb + 7.52 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English

Extras:

Dudley Andrew on The Life of Oharu -

1. Mizoguchi's Art and the Demimonde - in this audio essay, film scholar Dudley Andrew discusses director Kenji Mizoguchi's life and career, the roles women have in his film, his interest in art, etc. Mr. Andrew also discusses Saikaku Ihara's novel The Life of an Amorous Woman and relationship between the Japanese director's Utamaro and His Five Women and The Life of Oharu. The essay was written in 2013. In English, not subtitled. (19 min, 1080p).

2. Audio commentary by film scholar Dudley Andrew which plays over the first twenty eight minutes of The Life of Oharu. The majority of the information here pertains to the unique relationship between Kinuyo Tanaka and Kenji Mizoguchi and the important themes in The Life of Oharu. In English, not subtitled.

The Travels of Kinuyo Tanaka - a very informative documentary film directed by Koko Kajiyama focusing on the rocky career of actress Kinuyo Tanaka. The film contains a large amount archival footage, photos, and extracts from newspaper articles. It was produced in association with Geiyu-kai and was screened as part of an exhibition at the National Film Center in Tokyo in 2009. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (32 min, 1080i).

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