Ugetsu

Prior to starting this blog I had always written off Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953), though there was seldom a good reason and thoughts devolved into such axioms as “Japanese ghost stories? What is Ugetsu, another Ringu? Lolzzz,” “It doesn’t have Mifune, so why bother?,” or “In Her Shoes is assuredly a better choice for a blind rental.” Thus, when Ugetsu finally showed up in friends' top ten lists, I resolved to correct this neglect on my part. And lo, it was good, extremely good. What I always feared would be a stagnant fable, wizened and overtly preachy, instead became a wonder of character and atmosphere, allowing Mizoguchi’s immaculate mise en scene to express inner psychology while simultaneously allowing characters to follow their particular stories with self-critiques rather than moralistic decrees.

Moreover, this is one film that offers a brutal assessment of male-female relationships, and it’s one where Mizoguchi seems to side most with the feminine even as he suggests a way in which masculinity can be devoted to the feminine. That is, while Mizoguchi tells a universal story of man’s deterministic pride and delusional arrogance, detailing men who carelessly leave behind their wives and families to pursue their own gilded desires, by film’s end he expresses an innate humanism, allowing the men to shoulder their blame and acknowledge the hurt they have inflicted upon their wives. This extreme dedication to reciprocity is what enables the film to transcend the machinations of gender and become something simultaneously more universal and primitive, since modern society exists here as the pollutant of the soul and desire, what with its emphasis on bureaucracy and politics.

In using the generic conventions of the ghost story, a genre staple that, while universal, is most native to the Japanese people, Mizoguchi subverts the typical caricature of female malevolence, instead offering Lady Wasaka a mournful and existentialist sensitivity that demonstrates his humility toward women. Indeed, it is this humility that is most woven throughout Ugetsu, effacing these men and their materialistic sense of pride, so that their desires become grounded around devotion and responsibility, even if they can only prove this realization to their wives after the fact. Yet, again moving beyond traditional ghost stories, this after-death devotion is how our main characters bond together the most. Ultimately, this is a film about the violation of the world and ourselves, and works masterfully as an appeal to reappraising our desires for a higher sense of virtue.

Ugetsu: 10/10