Independent Films, Film Profiles

The Life of Oharu
by Kenji Mizoguchi

The Life of Oharu (西鶴一代女 ,Saikaku Ichidai Onna) is a 1952 historical fiction black and white film by director Kenji Mizoguchi starring Kinuyo Tanaka as Oharu, a one-time concubine of a daimyō (and mother of a later daimyō) who struggles to escape the stigma of having been sold into prostitution by her father. Based on a novel by Ihara Saikaku, the film constitutes an excellent example of the long take aesthetic, which Mizoguchi employed extensively throughout his career.Starring Kinuyo Tanaka (in what is perhaps her most famous role) as Oharu, the film tells a poignant story that uses the experiences of a struggling geisha to examine the issues of class and rigid hierarchy in Japanese society in Edo period.The story opens on Oharu as an old woman in a temple flashing back through the events of her life. It begins with her love affair with a page, the result of which (due to their class difference) is his execution and her family’s banishment. Oharu attempts suicide but fails and is sold to be the mistress of Lord Matsudaira with the hope she will bear him a son. She does, but then is sent home with minimal compensation to the dismay of her father, who has worked up quite a debt in the meantime. He sends her to be a courtesan, but there, too, she fails and is again sent home. She goes to serve the family of a woman who must hide the fact that she is bald from her husband. The woman becomes jealous of Oharu and makes her chop off her hair, but Oharu retaliates, revealing the woman’s secret. She again must leave—this time she marries a fan maker who is killed shortly after during a robbery. She attempts to become a nun, but is thrown out for seducing a man seeking reimbursement for fabric that she took. She is thrown out of the temple, becomes a prostitute, but fails even at that. In the end, she is recalled to the Lord’s house in order to keep secret her activities and to be exiled within the compounds to keep her secrets locked away. While being scolded for the life she chose, she attempts to find her son, and in the process, ends up running away as she chooses the life of a beggar over the life in exile.