Ugetsu
First screened in November 2024
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi. Cast: Masayuki Mori, Kinuyo Tanaka, Sakae Ozama, Mitsuko Mito, Machiko Kyō, Kikue Mori, Ryōsuke Kagawa, Ichiro Amano, Sugisaku Aoyama. Screenplay: Matsutarō Kawaguchi and Yoshikata Yoda (based on the stories Asaji Ga Yado and Jasei No In by Akinari Ueda).

 In Brief: A persuasively casual/chaotic look at civil war. A greed epic. A myth. A ghost tale. A technical mind-blower. In 90 minutes.

VOR: ⑤  I've seen five Mizoguchis now, and each one feels like a capstone achievement in style, bravely structured storytelling, in feeling, in themes.


   
Photo © 1953 Daiei Studios, © 1954 Edward
Harrison, © 2017 Janus Films
There is not a samurai or a civil warlord or a ghost or a drag queen or a panther in the jungle or an orca in downtown Vancouver that can out-fierce Kenji Mizoguchi. You can't do it. This guy sees human barbarity with total lucidity, and the very thin membrane separating social structure and social breakdown, at micro and macro scales. And he films all this with a breathtaking beauty that somehow doesn't dilute or dress up or apologize for all the savage behavior captured on camera. If anything, the beauty not just of image but of camera movement and choreography makes the savagery sting more?

Anyway, the two things I'm saying are that there was not one cell in Kenji Mizoguchi's body that was playing even a little bit when he made Ugetsu, and that Ugetsu might be the best movie I've seen for the first time in 2024. And I'm so glad I knew not one thing about its genre or plot when I started, and I recommend that approach to you as well. And also, jesus. christ! Grade: A

P.S. AMPAS managed to nominate Ugetsu for Costume Design, but decided on reflection that the clothes in I'll Cry Tomorrow were just a bit better, lololol.

(I originally wrote this review on Letterboxd.)

Academy Award Nominations:
Best Costume Design (Black & White): Tadaoto Kainoshō

Other Awards:
Venice Film Festival: Silver Lion (tied); Pasinetti Award
National Board of Review: Special Citation (Machiko Kyō)
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