#54 Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)

Directed by: Kenji Mizoguchi
Starring: Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori and Kinuyo Tanaka
Genre: Drama
IMDB

Sometimes I wonder why I never got around to watching this film, having seen Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff about five times now. I’ve heard people talk about how they think it’s a better film than Sansho and I just laugh. I’ll eventually get to it on this list, but as a precursor to that, I often think of Sansho as the greatest film ever made. Not my favorite film, but the apex of cinema. I think one of the reasons I put off  Ugetsu Monogatari for so long, was that Sansho had ravaged me emotionally so many times, I was sort of afraid to see how else Mizoguchi could tear at my heartstrings. So, going into Ugetsu Monogatari I was both excited, wary and a bit nervous.

Ugetsu tells the story of two ambitious peasant men, one a talented potter, the other a wannabe samurai, and their families in war-torn Japan. Mizoguchi, with a master’s touch, crafts a story about how ambition and greed can destroy man, and how we sometimes misunderstand our own ambition; mistaking it for a healthy drive to succeed. The two peasant men take very different paths, both in pursuit of their dreams, and suffer different though no less tragic fates because of their greed. Despite this film being over 60 years old and set in ancient Japan, it is a refreshing take on ambition in contrast to the modern view of ambition as something to be cultivated and rewarded. I viewed the film twice in preparation for this write-up because of how much Sansho benefits from repeat viewings and I have to say, it falls just shy of Sansho in almost every way (which is actually extremely high praise). It is devastating, though not as devastating as Sansho. The cinematography is beautiful, though not as beautiful as Sansho (I think you get the point). The one place it has Sansho beat is this, whereas after watching Sansho I didn’t really have a strong desire to check out Ugetsu, viewing Ugetsu has me excited to check out some of the other Mizoguchi films I’ve been missing.

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