Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) -- K. Mizoguchi

Mizoguchi's classic probably deserves to be seen on the big screen (and not the small one).  I can only imagine how the peasant village, the fog on Lake Biwa, the haunted mansion and other period sets might look sprawled on that large canvas in the dark. Mizoguchi excels at the long shot, keeping his characters in context, as we watch them buffeted by forces (sometimes supernatural forces) beyond their control (but unleashed through their own actions).  We follow two couples: Genjuro and his wife Miyagi who are potters and have a small son and Tobei and his wife Ohama who are laborers.  Genjuro hopes to get rich by selling his wares during wartime when prices are high; Tobei dreams of becoming a samurai.  Both end up abandoning their wives in their quests for money/power and find themselves somewhat quixotically achieving sexual and military conquests.  Their wives suffer horribly (a Mizoguchi trademark) and, in the end, so do the husbands. This is a ghost story but that is only one part of the tapestry that Mizoguchi weaves of feudal Japan. The natural world that humans have constructed is just as devastating.