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67% buy the item featured on this page: The Life Of Oharu [DVD] [1952] £7.28 |
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Mizoguchi reckoned The Life of Oharu was his masterpiece, and who are we to disagree? Certainly it's among his most perfectly structured films, in which anger at the treatment of women in Japanese society is balanced by the director's flawless sense of period, and by expert pacing and visual composition. The story is set in the 17th century, when Japan had settled into a rigidly hierarchical society. Kinuyo Tanaka, in perhaps the finest role of her career, plays Oharu, a highborn woman of the Imperial court. Disgraced when she falls in love with a man of a lower class (Toshiro Mifune, in his only film for Mizoguchi), she's made the mistress of a feudal lord. After bearing him a son she's cast out, and gradually sinks into prostitution and penury. The inevitability of Oharu's fate is tempered by her resilience of spirit--and by the compassion of Mizoguchi's gaze. Although the story is set in the past, he fully intends parallels with modern-day Japan; just after completing the film, he told an interviewer, "Comparing today with [earlier] periods, I don't find much difference: women have always been treated like slaves." The Life of Oharu was shown at the 1952 Venice Festival, where it was awarded the Golden Lion. It brought Mizoguchi a belated international fame just four years before his death, and initiated the run of late masterpieces that rounded off his career. --Philip Kemp
Synopsis
The story chronicles the decline through exile, concubinage and prostitution of Oharu Okui. Her sufferings and treatment are analysed until she is finally discarded like an inanimate object.
Mizoguchi reckoned The Life of Oharu was his masterpiece, and who are we to disagree? Certainly it's among his most perfectly structured films, in which anger at the treatment of women in Japanese society is balanced by the director's flawless sense of period, and by expert pacing and visual composition. The story is set in the 17th century, when Japan had settled into a rigidly hierarchical society. Kinuyo Tanaka, in perhaps the finest role of her career, plays Oharu, a highborn woman of the Imperial court. Disgraced when she falls in love with a man of a lower class (Toshiro Mifune, in his only film for Mizoguchi), she's made the mistress of a feudal lord. After bearing him a son she's cast out, and gradually sinks into prostitution and penury. The inevitability of Oharu's fate is tempered by her resilience of spirit--and by the compassion of Mizoguchi's gaze. Although the story is set in the past, he fully intends parallels with modern-day Japan; just after completing the film, he told an interviewer, "Comparing today with [earlier] periods, I don't find much difference: women have always been treated like slaves." The Life of Oharu was shown at the 1952 Venice Festival, where it was awarded the Golden Lion. It brought Mizoguchi a belated international fame just four years before his death, and initiated the run of late masterpieces that rounded off his career. --Philip Kemp
Synopsis
The story chronicles the decline through exile, concubinage and prostitution of Oharu Okui. Her sufferings and treatment are analysed until she is finally discarded like an inanimate object.
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