The Life of Oharu (1952)

"What's immoral about a man and woman falling in love?"

Director Mizoguchi Kenji precariously balanced The Life of Oharu on the edge of a knife, while touching on melodrama, never slipped off into base sentimentality. His heroine, Oharu, faced degradation after degradation as a woman during the Edo period of Japan. Bound by tradition and gender, with little autonomy, her life was one of hardship created by roles she could not break out of.

Teenage Oharu was in love with a young retainer played by Mifune Toshiro. Katsunosuke refuses to give up on her because of his lower class, believing rank and money don't mean happiness, one has to marry for love. When they are caught in flagrante delicto, she and her parents are banished from Kyoto and the court, a far easier punishment than the lowly man who loved her. As fate would have it in Edo, Lord Matsudaira needs a concubine because his wife is barren. Without a second thought for Oharu, her father sells her to the lord. She blesses the lord with a son, but when the ruler is deemed as becoming weaker for spending too much time in bed with her, she is shown the door with basically the clothes on her back.

Her father sells her to a courtesan house where her attitude gets her thrown out. He then sells her as a maid to a couple, but when they discover her background, the wife becomes jealous and the husband wants "favors." After leaving that household, her parents find her a husband who doesn't care about her background and for a brief time she is happy. But that happiness turns to tragedy and once again she is on the street even lower than before. A group of old prostitutes take her in and set her up as a common prostitute, not an easy or profitable proposition at her age. When fate seems to smile on her it is only to turn the knife. But this cruel last twist strangely leads to a path that brings her peace.

Tanaka Kinuyo at the age of 43 took part in the grand tradition of actresses too old for their role playing a teenager. Her father was played by Sugai Ichiro and her mother who was played by Matsuura Tsukie were both only two years older than she was in real life! The role took her well into middle age, with the prostitutes complaining that you can't make a fifty-year-old woman look twenty. Tanaka may not have had a teenager's youth but she still brought a resiliency and grace to the role even as Oharu's life deteriorated. Mifune Toshiro's role as the retainer in love with her was brief and filled with criticism of classism and advocation for personal choice in something as important as marriage.

Mizoguchi often focused on the plight of women in his pictures. When he was young, his sister was sold to a geisha house because his father had gone into debt. That same sister would later take he and his brother in and pay for their schooling and help him find jobs. His criticism of women being sold and the damage it did to their lives was stinging.

Oharu made one choice for herself, the love for the young retainer and that ended in utter disaster because such a union was unacceptable to society. After that, her life choices were determined by others, for their desires and benefits. When it was found out she had been a courtesan, it meant she was fair game and men took advantage of that. When she was dismissed by the daimyo, there was no compensation for her loss of status, nor when her husband died did she receive anything, it went to his family. She was a woman without power, without status, and without her own agency. Her father sold her three times, as a concubine, a courtesan, and then as a maid. With the brief exceptions of Katsunosuke and her husband, Oharu's dignity and happiness held little to no value to the men who came into her life. There was no guilt in selling her or casting her callously aside. Mizoguchi didn't dwell on the vile acts, he simply pointed them out---repeatedly. Men were the only ones who truly mattered, especially men of power, and they were myopically and self-centeredly exercising their rights. Oharu never wailed at her fate, she simply kept as much dignity as she could as she faced torment after torment. Only at the end, when she made a choice that kept her in control of her own body did she came into her own. What might have been seen as a loss by others, actually freed her for the first time and let her spirit sore.

Mizoguchi resisted an emotionally manipulative, overwrought soundtrack for this sorrowful story. Instead of a swelling impassioned score to highlight the current emotional crisis at hand, stark, traditional Japanese tunes were used, whether it was background music, Buddhist chants, or a beggar on the street playing. He often distanced the audience from Oharu's pain by having her partially cover her face. The beleaguered woman was also recurrently shown from the back so that we didn't see the wounded emotions on her face. The story enacted around her told us of her shame, grief, and anger. Oharu's circumstances were also hidden from other characters in the film. The people who derided her were blind to the depth of her pain and her despair at being powerless to fight the system that held no compassion for her.

The Life of Oharu could be repetitive but also contained an element of truth. In the 17th century, a woman once "ruined", lost her status and value making her vulnerable and leaving her with few alternatives. Oharu's real courage was in surviving and ultimately finding an escape route that freed her from the cruel cage society and family had trapped her in.

7/26/23

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