The Woman In The Rumor

The Woman In The Rumor (Uwasa no onna 1954) is an overlooked film by Kenji Mizoguchi because it was released the same year as two major films: Sansho the Balif and A Story from Chikamatsu. This is yet another Mizogchi story set in the pleasure quarters and there are almost no redeeming male characters-save a kindly tea house operator, Harada (Eitaro Shindo), who is sweet on the proprietor of the geisha/tea house (Kinuyo Tanaka) whose daughter has just returned to Kyoto after a failed suicide. The daughter, Yukiko (Yoshiko Kuga), feels victimized by her mother's profession since the man that she loved spurned her after learning what her mother did for a living. Her mother has her eye on a younger doctor, Matoba (Tomoemon Otani) that also catches Yukio's fancy due to his sensitive bedside manner, which is compromised later by his avarice and instinct for success at any cost. Some of the characters may not be fully fleshed out, so this remains minor Mizoguchi. However, the more films I see by Mizoguchi the more impressed I am at his sense of style. So much that when the script, acting, and themes come together the result is often a masterpiece and even when all these factors don't come together properly-it is usually a spectacle worth seeing. This film, as much as any other. shows his gift for composition, framing, employing interesting crane and dolly shots. The opening sequence is a crane shots of an old house when suddenly a car careens into the street almost running over pedestrians as the mistress of the house arrives from Tokyo with her daughter in tow placing the film in the present. Later there is a scene at the Noh theater that mirrors the actions in the film in which an older woman chases a  younger man. And then there is a scene that shows Yukiko and the doctor making plans to move to Tokyo together that distress Yukiko's mother who is splitting the screen around the corner of a wall with her face framed by an ikebana flower arrangement drawing attention to her distressed face. This is not among Mizoguchi's best films, but worthwhile in several aspects.