The Woman of Rumour (1954)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Woman of Rumour (1954) – K. Mizoguchi

Sixty-five years later, it is refreshing (and somewhat disconcerting) to see how clearly Mizoguchi’s film addresses women’s plight in a male-dominated world (disconcerting because the “me too” movement suggests how little progress has been made).  Kinuyo Tanaka (one of the director’s favourite actresses and a tremendous one) runs a brothel in Kyoto and is successful enough to send her daughter Yukiko (Yoshiko Kuga) away to a good college in Tokyo. By all accounts, she is a good madam but when her daughter returns (in modern dress and short haircut), she rejects the business on principle because it subjugates women. We do see some awful drunken men groping the geishas/courtesans and a condescending rich man offering to help run the business (Tanaka’s husband is long deceased) … for a price.  But the main dynamic in the film involves a young doctor (Tomoemon Otani) who has been tending to the girls at the brothel (who have regular illnesses due to their line of work) and is also being well looked after by Tanaka.  Indeed, she is willing to pay 2.5 million yen to set him up with his own clinic, despite the fact that this will require her to mortgage the brothel and/or accept a loan from the sleazy businessman.  At first, it seems that she is trying to pair the doctor with her daughter and the two do soon fall in love – but alas it turns out that Tanaka’s madam really wanted the doctor for herself.  Mizoguchi cruelly twists the knife by having the characters attend a performance of a Noh drama that ridicules and older woman who has fallen in love with a younger man (the double standard should be more than apparent to viewers as they see the parade of older salarymen visiting the young geishas).  Of course, the doctor has been a willing recipient of Tanaka’s affection and gifts, so it feels a terrible betrayal when he rejects her for the daughter.  But late in the film Yukiko feels sympathy for her mother (or empathy because Yukiko too was rejected by a suitor and nearly committed suicide) and this extends to the young women who work in the brothel.  In a surprising turn of events, she joins their side.  I can’t quite reconcile the film’s final scenes with my thesis that Mizoguchi is an early feminist but I am trying – the brothel business continues with the daughter in charge.  Has she found that this is how she can support women because (pathetically) men and the world will never change?  Sixty-five years later, it turns out that this could be true.