"Saikaku ichidai onna" or "Saikaku: Life of a Woman" is an award-winning black-and-white movie from 1952, so this one will soon have its 70th anniversary. Of course, despite this age, it is a sound film already. And obviously it is a Japanese production as the director here is Kenji Mizoguchi and he is also among the writers who adapted the novel the film is based on for the screen. Now I think that not too many immediately scream here when asked if they know the name Mizoguchi (and that includes myself too), but looking at his body of work and how well it is received still today a lot of it, it can be safely said that he is Tier II when it comes to Japanese filmmakers and Tier I is really only Kurosawa of course. Besides Mizoguchi really did not reach an ancient age, died before his 60th birthday already (from leukemia), so had he gotten a bit older then he perhaps could have delivered more quality films, especially because his biggest successes are from the last decade of his life, which makes sense also because of the political climate in Japan before that. So yeah quite a pity he did not live longer, but still during his career he almost directed 100 movies and for many of these he was also in charge of the screenplay. Very prolific man and a hard worker.
Now lets take a look at this one we got here: The lead actress is Kinuyo Tanaka and she was at least as prolific as the man behind the camera. This is definitely among her most known efforts now. She was around the age of 40 when this was made, but she plays herself really during all kinds of times in her character's life. Sometimes she is way younger, sometimes way older. And she is in basically every scene. The only other cast member I can mention here is Toshirô Mifune becaue he is considered one of Japan's greatest actors of all time now. But here he is just supporting just like everybody else except Tanaka. It's her movie from beginning to end. And it is a really depressing movie unfortunately. Or fortunately. Because the protagonist's misery on many occasions lets you feel for her. I only want to mention a few of the bad things happening to her. Early on, she is in love with a guy below her social status and the two are caught and exposed. She is told that she has to leave the town and the guy is killed with a sword as punishment. So she loses her social prestige becausse of what happened and also her parents are punished too and have to leave with her. And especially her father is really harsh on his daughter because of what happens. This relationship is one that is constantly there from beginning to end of this film and always a burden, even when he dies because then we have her mother visit her and actually at that point the protagonist just collapsed and then her mother shows up and tells her that her father is dead and that is basically the daughter's fault. So yeah I am not sure if the mother despises the daughter too or just has zero emotional intelligence, but with parents like these you don't need any enemies really. Okay let's not forget that the main character also lost her love there. Next up is basically that she is picked by a wealthy and influential man to give birth to his child. I was honestly really surprised that he picked her because there were many more attractive options, but oh well maybe that is just me. I must say in general they did not manage to make a 40-year-old look like 20-year-old and apparently that was what they had on their minds, so a huge challenge and yeah well big surprise she was picked. But all goes well and she gives birth. The son is healthy and everybody is happy. For a while because then Tanaka's character is sent away back to her parents and they again are not happy at all. Or the father I should say. They did not comfort her daughter when her love was executed. They did not comfort her daughter when she had to give up on her son.
More humiliation ensues. She finds another love years later who really appreciates her honestly, but that one is killed by burglars or robbers or so out of nowhere. She ends up with a thief, but he is caught in the act. This woman definitely has no problems finding men. Near the end then the circle somewhat closes as she ends up being close to her son again. They agree to let her see him, but as she has worked as a concubine and prostitute at that point already, they despise her and say such a person is not acceptable and they say after having seen her son once she will be locked away in confinement for the rest of her life. So she realizes if she wants to be free she has to give up on the idea of seeing her son and flee. That's what she does knowingly she will never lay eyes on her only child again. This somewhat made me really sad, although I am not entirely sure I got it 100% correctly. So the tragedy for the main protagonist results in the compassion you feel in the audience. Yes it is a really long film at almost 2.5 hours and I would lie if I say it never dragged at all for me, but it still went by pretty quickly luckily. I am glad I got the chance to see this on the big screen for the first time on the occasion of a retrospective on Mizoguchi and I am already curious about other films from him being shown in the next weeks. This one her gets a thumbs-up from me because there are no major weaknesses, even if for such a long film real greatness was not reached too often either. So not too enthusiastic my recommendation and obviously this is not a film for everybody. But it was individual scenes that made it work like the "witch humiliation" from a group of men and also the references about her being poor and making music. Early on she just witnesses a women who does exactly that and she realizes this could be her future self and she is shocked and scared and later on we see her in exactly this situation that she is the one with the mix between mourning and singing. It is definitely a good screenplay. A rating easily above 8 out of 10 is certainly too much, but yeah I believe this one deserves to be seen adn I am glad Mizoguchi left us works like this. Also the other departments like the soundtrack are fine. See it.
Now lets take a look at this one we got here: The lead actress is Kinuyo Tanaka and she was at least as prolific as the man behind the camera. This is definitely among her most known efforts now. She was around the age of 40 when this was made, but she plays herself really during all kinds of times in her character's life. Sometimes she is way younger, sometimes way older. And she is in basically every scene. The only other cast member I can mention here is Toshirô Mifune becaue he is considered one of Japan's greatest actors of all time now. But here he is just supporting just like everybody else except Tanaka. It's her movie from beginning to end. And it is a really depressing movie unfortunately. Or fortunately. Because the protagonist's misery on many occasions lets you feel for her. I only want to mention a few of the bad things happening to her. Early on, she is in love with a guy below her social status and the two are caught and exposed. She is told that she has to leave the town and the guy is killed with a sword as punishment. So she loses her social prestige becausse of what happened and also her parents are punished too and have to leave with her. And especially her father is really harsh on his daughter because of what happens. This relationship is one that is constantly there from beginning to end of this film and always a burden, even when he dies because then we have her mother visit her and actually at that point the protagonist just collapsed and then her mother shows up and tells her that her father is dead and that is basically the daughter's fault. So yeah I am not sure if the mother despises the daughter too or just has zero emotional intelligence, but with parents like these you don't need any enemies really. Okay let's not forget that the main character also lost her love there. Next up is basically that she is picked by a wealthy and influential man to give birth to his child. I was honestly really surprised that he picked her because there were many more attractive options, but oh well maybe that is just me. I must say in general they did not manage to make a 40-year-old look like 20-year-old and apparently that was what they had on their minds, so a huge challenge and yeah well big surprise she was picked. But all goes well and she gives birth. The son is healthy and everybody is happy. For a while because then Tanaka's character is sent away back to her parents and they again are not happy at all. Or the father I should say. They did not comfort her daughter when her love was executed. They did not comfort her daughter when she had to give up on her son.
More humiliation ensues. She finds another love years later who really appreciates her honestly, but that one is killed by burglars or robbers or so out of nowhere. She ends up with a thief, but he is caught in the act. This woman definitely has no problems finding men. Near the end then the circle somewhat closes as she ends up being close to her son again. They agree to let her see him, but as she has worked as a concubine and prostitute at that point already, they despise her and say such a person is not acceptable and they say after having seen her son once she will be locked away in confinement for the rest of her life. So she realizes if she wants to be free she has to give up on the idea of seeing her son and flee. That's what she does knowingly she will never lay eyes on her only child again. This somewhat made me really sad, although I am not entirely sure I got it 100% correctly. So the tragedy for the main protagonist results in the compassion you feel in the audience. Yes it is a really long film at almost 2.5 hours and I would lie if I say it never dragged at all for me, but it still went by pretty quickly luckily. I am glad I got the chance to see this on the big screen for the first time on the occasion of a retrospective on Mizoguchi and I am already curious about other films from him being shown in the next weeks. This one her gets a thumbs-up from me because there are no major weaknesses, even if for such a long film real greatness was not reached too often either. So not too enthusiastic my recommendation and obviously this is not a film for everybody. But it was individual scenes that made it work like the "witch humiliation" from a group of men and also the references about her being poor and making music. Early on she just witnesses a women who does exactly that and she realizes this could be her future self and she is shocked and scared and later on we see her in exactly this situation that she is the one with the mix between mourning and singing. It is definitely a good screenplay. A rating easily above 8 out of 10 is certainly too much, but yeah I believe this one deserves to be seen adn I am glad Mizoguchi left us works like this. Also the other departments like the soundtrack are fine. See it.