Utamaro o meguru gonin no onna (Utamaro and His Five Women, 1946)

Mizoguchi Kenji

Japan

106 min, B&W, Japanese (English subtitles)

At the closing of the eighteenth century, the Tokugawa rule has imposed rigid class norms and various regulations that govern the feudal society. Many of these regulations had to do with proscriptions related to the arts. (For example, having judged that female kabuki actresses led to lewd and innappropriate displays in the audience, the government forbade women from acting, with the end result of the appearance of female impersonators, and the subsequent lust for them as well. It is always futile to impose laws that go against natural human impulses.) In a not-so subtle depiction both of the pre-war autocratic military rule and the post-war American censorship, Mizoguchi manages to argue his way to artistic freedom despite the restrictions imposed by the governments.

The film is about various forms of freedom in an environment that harshly circumscribes expressions of individualism, love, or anything chaotic and unruly enough to arise the ire of the authorities, be it governmental or societal.

On his way home, the samurai and Kano Art School disciple Seinosuke (Bandô Kôtarô) stops to buy a cheap woodblock print to amuse his teacher, who is also the father of his fiance Yukie (Ohara Eiko). Having been recommended a print by the hottest ukiyo-e artist Utamaro, he takes a closer look only to discover that the painter has scribbled a rather immodest message on the picture, claiming that even his sketches have more life than the established school's paintings. Enraged, Seinosuke demands an apology, which Utamaro (Bandô Minosuke) refuses to grant but instead challenges the samurai to a painting duel. When Utamaro improves on Seinosuke's painting, the latter decides to give up his life of privilege in order to become a true artist because (he believes) the rigid social milieu of his class will not permit free expression. He abandons status, family, and Yukie to dedicate himself to art.

Utamaro's main source of inspiration is the beautiful Okita (Tanaka Kinuyo, whom many would always remember for her role as Tamaki in Mizoguchi's Shansho, the Bailiff). She, however, has fallen irretrievably in love with Shozaburo, an inexplicably successful laides' man, who elopes with the highly-placed courtesan Oman (Kusajima Kyôko) right after Utamaro drew a design for her exquisite back tattoo. Resolved to fight for her love, Okita embarks on a quest for her lover, leaving Utamaro to produce inferior prints.

The painter soon finds new inspiration in Oran (Kawasaki Hiroko), who happens to be one of the local daimyo's ladies in waiting. He is enthralled by her ethereal beauty and paints her with wild abandon until he is arrested by the authorities for some (presumably politically incorrect) pictures of Hideyoshi. While he is in prison, Seinosuke stumbles across Oran and is himself enchanted by her beauty. Forgetting all about Yukie, who has also abandoned family and status to be with him, Seinosuke elopes with Oran.

In the end, Mizoguchi pulls all these threads together in a rather tragic finale, where the right to personal freedom is affirmed although not without questions about its cost to others.

The subversive message of this film is perhaps best summarized by contrasting the opening and closing sequences. The film begins with the camera slowly rolling next to a ritualized ceremonial dance of the late eighteenth century Edo period. The stiff, somewhat unnatural, proceedings provide no evidence of joy and entertainment, reflecting the stifling restrictions of the closed rule by the shogunate.

The ending is explosive. Okita's passionate desire for true love finally bursts out in a grisly display of violence as she murders both her incostant lover Shozaburo and her rival Oman. Confessing to the painter, she is distraught but does not regret her deed. To her, it is more important to have lived and died according to her own rules than settle for an imitation of life. She proudly walks away to deliver herself to certain death at the hands of the authorities.

With his punishment finally over, Utamaro immediately gets back to work. It is his way of dealing with the restrictions of the world around him. His way of finding life is through his art. Only when he paints the beautifully tragic women around him does he feel at ease.

Ironically, the only woman who does not suffer herself or cause suffering to others is the fifth, Oshin (Shiratao Kiniko), who is about to marry happily Utamaro's servant Takemaro (Tomimoto Mimpei). She is old, she is not pretty, she is rather overweight, and so, as Take himself admits, she is a safe choice. However, it is not only that, "she has her good points," we are told, and there can be no doubt in that. Sadly, however, it is the safe choice that is the least tragic. One may wonder whether it is not just as life-affirming as the passionate destructive ones.

Working at the height of the American occupation, Mizoguchi has to defend his film arguing that it conformed to the norms the new government was interested in promoting and emphasized the social aspects of his film. However, as should be plain from the discussion above, he delivered much more than a criticism of feudal society. After all, when his 50 days of house arrest were over, Utamaro was permitted to go back to work. This is unlike Okita, Shozaburo, and Oman, who all die, and is also unlike Yukie who remains abandoned by her former lover. In the end, both freedom and destruction come more from the individual than from any government. A dangerously seditious message considering that all state authority is built on control of violence.

October 28, 2002