Ugetsu (雨月物語, Ugetsu Monogatari, lit. "Rain-moon tales") is a 1953 Japanese period fantasy film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi starring Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō. It was written by Matsutarō Kawaguchi and Yoshikata Yoda based on the stories "The House in the Thicket" and "The Lust of the White Serpent" from Ueda Akinari's 1776 book Ugetsu Monogatari, combining elements of the jidaigeki (period drama) genre with a ghost story.
Drawing from Ueda's tales, the film is set in Japan's civil war–torn Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600). In a small rural community, a potter leaves his wife and young son behind to make money selling pottery and ends up being seduced by a spirit that makes him forget all about his family. A subplot, inspired by Guy de Maupassant's 1883 short story "How He Got the Legion of Honor" ("Décoré!"), involves his brother-in-law, who dreams of becoming a samurai and chases this goal at the unintended expense of his wife.
The film won the Silver Lion Award at the 1953 Venice Film Festival and other honours. Ugetsu is one of Mizoguchi's most celebrated films, regarded by critics as a masterpiece of Japanese cinema, credited with simultaneously helping to popularize Japanese cinema in the West and influencing later Japanese film.
Plot Genjūrō, a farmer from the village of Nakanogō on the shore of Lake Biwa in Ōmi Province during the Sengoku period, makes pottery and sells it in town alongside his brother-in-law, Tōbei, who dreams of becoming a samurai. When Shibata Katsuie's army sweeps through the village and forces the villagers to flee, Genjūrō persists in working to finish his pottery, intending on making a profit in nearby Ōmizo.
As Genjūrō, Tōbei and their wives travel toward Ōmizo across Lake Biwa, they encounter a boat carrying a dying man, who warns them of pirates. Miyagi, Genjūrō's wife, is returned to the shore with their young son, Genichi, while Tōbei's wife, Ohama, decides to accompany the men. In Ōmizo, Genjūrō's pottery sells well. After taking his share of the profits, Tōbei purchases samurai armor and sneaks into an army camp. Becoming lost while searching for him, Ohama is captured by a group of soldiers and raped.
A noblewoman, Lady Wakasa, and her female servant visit Genjūrō, ordering several pieces of pottery and requesting that he deliver them to her mansion. There, he learns that the women are the only survivors of the Kutsuki clan following a massacre by Oda Nobunaga's army, and that Wakasa's father haunts the mansion. Wakasa seduces Genjūrō and convinces him to marry her. Meanwhile back in Nakanogō, soldiers desperately searching for food accost Miyagi and stab her. She collapses with her son still clutching her back.
Tōbei steals the head of a defeated general and presents it to the commander of the victors, earning himself a retinue. Later, he rides into town on his new horse, eager to return home to show his wife. Stopping by a brothel, he finds her working there as a prostitute. Tōbei begs for her forgiveness and promises to redeem her honor.
Genjūrō meets a priest who tells him to return to his loved ones or accept death. When Genjūrō mentions Wakasa, the priest reveals that she is dead and performs a ritual with Genjūrō, painting Sanskrit symbols on his body. Returning to the mansion, Genjūrō admits that he is married, has a child, and wishes to go home. Wakasa and her servant concede that they are spirits, returned to this world so Wakasa, who was slain before experiencing love, could fulfill that desire. Wakasa attempts to stop him from leaving but cannot touch him due to the presence of the symbols. Genjūrō reaches for a sword, throws himself out of the manor, and collapses.
Genjūrō wakes up the next day and finds himself in the middle of a ruin. He is accused of stealing the sword by soldiers, which he denies, insisting it is from the Kutsuki mansion. The soldiers inform him that the mansion had long been destroyed, confiscate his money, but spare him imprisonment as the prison has burned down. Genjūrō returns home and is reunited with an overjoyed Miyagi, to whom he admits that he has made a terrible mistake. He holds Genichi his arms and falls asleep. The next morning, Genjūrō is awakened by the village chief. The chief, surprised to see him home, explains that he has been caring for Genichi after Miyagi was stabbed to death.
Later, Tōbei returns to Nakanogō with Ohama. He reflects on his mistakes and resolves to work hard from then on. Genjūrō continues caring for Genichi and working on his pottery. Ohama gives Genichi a plate of food, which he takes and places on his mother's grave.
Cast
Machiko Kyō as Lady Wakasa Mitsuko Mito as Ohama Kinuyo Tanaka as Miyagi Masayuki Mori as Genjūrō Eitaro Ozawa as Tōbei (credited as Sakae Ozawa) Ichisaburo Sawamura as Genichi Kikue Mōri as Ukon, Lady Wakasa's nurse Ryōsuke Kagawa as village master Eigoro Onoe as knight Saburo Date as vassal Sugisaku Aoyama as old priest Reiko Kongo as old woman in brothel Shozo Nanbu as Shinto priest Ichirō Amano as boatsman Kichijirō Ueda as shop owner Teruko Omi as prostitute Keiko Koyanagi as prostitute Mitsusaburō Ramon as Captain of Tamba soldiers Jun Fujikawa as lost soldier Ryuuji Fukui as lost soldier Masayoshi Kikuno as soldier Hajime Koshikawa Sugisaka Koyama as High Priest Ryuzaburo Mitsuoka as soldier Koji Murata Fumihiko Yokoyama
Production
Development
After the success of his previous film The Life of Oharu (1952), Mizoguchi was offered to make a film by his old friend Masaichi Nagata at Daiei Film studios. The deal promised Mizoguchi complete artistic control and a large budget. Despite this, Mizoguchi was eventually pressured to make a less pessimistic ending for the film. Mizoguchi's screenwriter and long-time collaborator Yoshikata Yoda said that originally, Mizoguchi did not envision making an anti-war film, instead wishing to capture the sensations and lucidity of Ueda's book Ugetsu Monogatari.
Mizoguchi based his film on two stories from Ueda's book, "The House in the Thicket" (Asaji ga Yado) and "The Lust of the White Serpent" (Jasei no In). "The Lust of the White Serpent" is about a demon who appears as a princess and attempts to seduce a man. It was the basis of the plot in which Lady Wakasa seduces Genjūrō. "The House in the Thicket" gave the film its ending, in which the protagonist returns home after a long absence, only to meet the spirit of his lost wife. The film is set in the 16th century, though "The House in the Thicket" is set in the 15th century and "The Lust of the White Serpent" is set in an earlier time frame. Other inspirations for the film's script include Guy de Maupassant's Décoré! (How He Got the Legion of Honour). This story provided a basis for Tōbei's subplot. In the short story, the protagonist receives the French Legion of Honour by ignoring his wife's adultery with a member of the Legion. Similarly, Tōbei becomes a samurai while his wife becomes a prostitute.
Despite initial intentions, as the film developed, Yoda said anti-war messages, particularly about how war makes women suffer, kept surfacing and soon became the most prominent theme. While writing the script, Mizoguchi told Yoda "Whether war originates in the ruler's personal motives, or in some public concern, how violence, disguised as war, oppresses and torments the populace both physically and spiritually ... I want to emphasise this as the main theme of the film". During the shooting Yoda was constantly rewriting and revising scenes due to Mizoguchi's perfectionism.
Casting The film was Machiko Kyō's second collaboration with Mizoguchi, as she had a small role in The Three Danjuros (1944). She had collaborated much more frequently with Masayuki Mori. As Lady Wakasa, Kyō's costume was modeled after fashion before the Edo period and her face was designed to appear similar to a mask common in Noh theatre. As such, her eyebrows were styled using a practice known as hikimayu.
Kinuyo Tanaka, who played Miyagi, found the scene where she is a ghost to be the most stressful, as she had to play a ghost and appear to be an actual wife at the same time. After rehearsals and the shooting, Mizoguchi lit a cigarette for Mori, indicating his rare degree of satisfaction with the scene. Eitaro Ozawa, who played Tōbei, said the actors frequently rehearsed alone, or with the cinematographer, while Mizoguchi was willingly absent during these preparations.
Filming
Mizoguchi told his cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa that he wanted the film "to unroll seamlessly like a scroll-painting". The Southern School of Chinese painting was particularly an inspiration the filmmakers aspired to. The film has been praised for its cinematography, such as the opening shot and the scene where Genjūrō and Lady Wakasa have sex by a stream and the camera follows the flow of the water instead of lingering on the two lovers. Mizoguchi never personally handled the camera and did not participate in planning the lighting of his film. To achieve the appearance the filmmakers wanted, Miyagawa kept lighting low and filmed as near to sunset as circumstances would allow. Many of the shots were taken from cranes, with Miyagawa claiming in 1992 that these shots made up 70% of the film. Miyagawa also stated that this film was the only occasion in which Mizoguchi complimented him for his camera work.
The set depicting Kutsuki Manor was based on the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto. These sets are decorated with props evocative of feudal-era aristocrats, such as kimono and armor, personally chosen by Mizoguchi. The scene where the protagonists travel through Lake Biwa on a boat was in fact shot on a pool in the studio, with added smoke. The assistant directors had to push the boat through the cold waters. Miyagawa identified this as one of the scenes shot from a crane.
Music
For the film score, Mizoguchi relied on composer Fumio Hayasaka and the assistant directors, and was not involved in their creative process. Fumio Hayasaka was a strong proponent of using Japanese music in Japanese films, though he incorporated several elements of Western music as well. For Ugetsu, he employed geza music, common in Kabuki theatre. Additional, uncredited composers were Ichirō Saitō and Tamekichi Mochizuki, whose music was blended with Hayasaka's, and could provide accurate music reflective of the period.
The score employs drums, flutes and chanting. The film's sounds also include bells heard in improbable places. There is significant use of the harp, restricted to the presence of the supernatural.Tony Rayns audio commentary, Criterion Collection, 2005
Themes According to Professor Martha P. Nochimson, a common interpretation of the film is that Mizoguchi refashioned the stories of Ugetsu Monogatari to express regret about the pro-war extremism leading to World War II, with Mizoguchi personally having made the pro-war propaganda film The 47 Ronin in 1941. These reflections on militarism, greed and arrogance connected with audiences not only in Japan but around the world in the wake of the war. The subplot of Tōbei and Ohama particularly reflects the comfort women, who were made into prostitutes by the Imperial Japanese Army. Mizoguchi struggled with Daiei to give the subplot an unhappier ending than what appears in the film, in line with real comfort women's experiences after the war. Tōbei's subplot reveals the mistake of war can also be a "tragicomedy".
According to British critic Tony Rayns the film's presentation of the vanity of a man, neglecting his family, is a critique of historic men in feudal Japanese culture. In his relationship with Wakasa, Genjūrō is insignificant and is seduced by something greater, that he can never comprehend. However, by neglecting his family, Genjūrō failed to appreciate he has already been blessed with a good life, and in the process, loses it.