Miss Oyu

Heart-wrenching and sad tale of love and sacrifice under harsh traditional rules is told in beautiful, lyrical black-and-white imagery and the cast perform excellently throughout, especially Kinuyo Tanaka in the title role.

Set in contemporary Japan to the director, specifically in Kyoto, the film tells the story of a young man who falls in love with his wife's widowed older sister. This triggers a deep triangle of feelings and drama that the director stages with his unique style of theatricality and artistic attention to every scene. Much refinement in the way of treating the story and psychological attention to the characters who are immersed in a country and a society where living and loving completely seems almost impossible.. One of the most beautiful films by Mizoguchi that I have seen. The character of Mrs. Oyu stands out strongly for her charm and remains very much as an image.

For a few moments, Truffaut's film Jules and Jim from 1962 immediately came to mind.

Mizoguchi was employed by a studio that wished, post war Japan, to target the womens market with superior, slightly racy melodramas. He directed what by todays standard seems an incredible number of movies in a few years, alternating personal projects like Lady Oharu with more commercial studio fare like this movie.

This is a top class example of the type of movie that resulted. The term 'womens movie' can seem a little derisive - but this was simply the market they aimed for. It is an adaption of a well known and respected book from the early '30's, although it is set in contemporary times, while the original was set in the Meiji period. In the excellent Masters of Cinema DVD, Tony Rayne's introduction suggests that Mizoguchi wasn't particularly proud of the movie, one reason being that he was forced by the studio to miscast Kinuyo Tanaka as the eponymous heroine, rather than a more elegant, disciplined actress (Hara Setsuko comes to mind as someone who would have played this beautifully). There is certainly a problem with the movie in that she plays the character as a more forceful, modern woman than was probably intended. But I think only those who read the book would find this a major problem.

The story concerns a young man who rather inconveniently falls in love with the beloved older sister (Miss Oyu) of his intended bride. His bride insists on going ahead with the marriage, but without consummating it, so that he can be close to Miss Oyu, who is a widow who must live at home with her in-laws to take care of her son, but by tradition is not allowed to remarry. Over the years the three-way relationship takes some predictably tragic turns.

The story is far more melodramatic than the movies of this period by Ozu or Naruse. It could have been pretty horrible in the hands of a less skillful director than Mizoguchi. But his astonishingly beautiful sets and his famous one cut scenes sets the movie apart. It really is gorgeous to look at.

These stories were and are seen by some Japanese as problematic, as they can be seen as romanticizing archaic sentiments. To my western eyes, I found it utterly fascinating. The manner in which people struggle under arranged marriages to find love and happiness is utterly alien to westerners, yet still compelling. I had somewhat low expectations about this movie as several sources dismiss it as very minor compared to Mizoguchi's pre-war and later period masterpieces. It is certainly not a work of genius to match Sansho Dayo or Ugetsu, but I found it riveting viewing and certainly not a minor movie by any standards.

"Miss Oyu" is about a man in love with the elder sister of his wife. In fact he was already in love when he married, and he married only to become the brother in law of his loved one.

In Western style movies this love triangle would be all about trickery and deceit. In this Japanese film it is all about self sacrifice. The wife knows very well that her husband doesn't love her but wants to allow her sister a sexual relationship. A relationship that tradition denies to a widow with children.

The only Western film that vaguely resembles "Miss Oyu" in the treatment of a love triangle is part 9 of the "Dekalog" (1989, Krzysztof Kieslowski) in which an impotent man encourages his wife to take a lover. In this film self sacrifice ex ante does not preclude jealousy ex post. Also in "Miss Oyu" self sacrifice has its price.

"Miss Oyu" is based on a story by Junichiro Tanizaki and directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Given these two big names one would expect a film of high quality. "Miss Oyu" is however at times very sentimental.

The reason probably is that "Miss Oyu" is the first film Mizoguchi made for the Daiei studio and the Daiei studio needed a commercial success very badly. By the term "studio system" everybody thinks of Hollywood, but the studio system in Japan worked more or less the same. When you were a renowned director, as Mizoguchi was, you were allowed to make one film for the sudio and one film according to your own artistic interest. "Miss Oyu" was for the studio.

Yûji Hori has hired a match maker, but he has rejected all of her proposed ladies. Finally she brings to him Nobuko Otowa. He is iffy about her, and the match maker's patience is running short. Does he even know what he is looking for in a wife? He knows. It is the woman who accompanied Miss Otowa, her widowed sister Kinuyo Tanaka. However, her son is the clan heir, and therefore she may not remarry. She urges him to marry her sister, so she can visit her.

Kenji Mizoguchi's movie is not one of his great movies, but it is an impeccably executed bit of soap opera. All three principals are aware of each other's feelings, and nothing is said. When Miss Tanaka's son dies, she is thrust from her home, her brother will not take her in, nor can she move in with her sister -- the gossip would only increase.

As I said, it's not one of Mizoguchi's major works, but that doesn't mean he did a shoddy job; he seemed incapable of that. The last two shots, with their subjective cameras, are heartbreaking.