#47: Ugetsu

Ugetsu (1953, Mizoguchi)

In the early fiftees there was a flurry of great Japanese films that all take place in sixteenth century Japan. Most of them feature samurais. I don't know how to explain this trend other than a bandwagon effect, but the output explores all the nuances of samurai mythology.

Ugetsu follows a group of peasants whose village is ransacked by samurai preparing for war. They're steal everything that's useful to them, kidnap men for forced labor, and rape women. The story focuses on two families, the men of which have ambition to escape the fate of peasantry, one of them through becoming a samurai and one through being accepted by the upper classes for his expert craftsmanship. In their pursuit of these ends they leave their homes and put their families in danger. Both stories are adapted from Japanese novels about the dangers of ambition, especially in a time of civil war and poverty. The cinematography is beautiful and realistic and the characters come off as universally human.

Rating: **** 1/2 / 5

17/101*

*I found the copy of On The Waterfront I thought I already sold, so I'm adding that back to the hundred.

Others:

Oldboy: **** / 5

Oldboy is a twist-driven movie with sort of a dark Fight Club-esque take on Hitchcockian psychological drama.

Fish Tank *** / 5

A realistic movie about a teenage girl who fights everyone in her life, until she falls in love with the father figure in her mother's boyfriend. There was one part of the movie toward the end I didn't buy at all, but otherwise, the movie seemed like a psychologically true portrayal of teenagers raised without a strong parental presence.

Next: Goodfellas