Osaka Elegy

Osaka Elegy (1936), part of the Criterion Eclipse series: #13 Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women, is the first Mizoguchi film I’ve seen and I was impressed. There were some interesting shot and a lot of deep focus cinematography as well as a standout performance by the lead Isuzu Yamada. However, I was more impressed by Mizoguchi’s warts and all approach to his depiction of, then, contemporary society. There’s no real sugarcoated “official version” of Japanese society. A young woman working at a large company succumbs to the boss’ insistence that she become his mistress, which she does to pay off her father’s debt obtained through embezzlement. She resents her father-the father resents his children. Her boss resents his wife, and his wife resents him. You won’t get any filial piety here-except that the daughter succumbs to a lower ranking executive in order to pay off her brother’s tuition. She gets in trouble with the police and essentially disowned by the family-even though the father knows what she has done for the family. Her fiancé gives up on her since she is a fallen woman and she is left to ram the streets friendless, and cast out from her family. At least it didn’t end in suicide-which is where I thought it was headed. I’m looking forward to seeing the other titles in this series.