9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mizoguchi's Swan Song, July 7, 2002
By A Customer
Kenji Mizoguchi's final film before his death at age 58. This movie features an all-star Japanese cast (Machiko Kyo and Ayako Wakao, to name a few). "Street of Shame," like many of Mizoguchi's movies, focuses on the plight of women in Japanese society. The film chronicles the lives of five prostitutes who work in a Tokyo brothel called Dreamland, an appropriate name indeed. One prostitute named Yumeko dreams of living with her adult son. But that son rejects her because he's ashamed of her profession. Another prostitute named Yorie longs for a happy married life. But her dream also turns into a nightmare. One of the most memorable moments in the film is when one of the prostitutes goes insane. The stories of the women, often heart-wrenching, are told by Mizoguchi with a sense of compassion. The acting is first-rate. Machiko Kyo, who also starred in Rashomon and Ugetsu, gives one of her strongest performances. This movie is a worthwhile addition to any collection of Japanese films. My only real disappointment concerns the soundtrack which I found to be extremely annoying at times.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tokyo's red light district in the postwar years, May 25, 2011
As I have written elsewhere (see my review of "A Geisha"), Mizoguchi championed women's rights long before the movement took hold in Japan. This 1956 film weaves together stories of five women driven by economic hardship to become prostitutes at Dreamland in the Yoshiwara district of Tokyo. At the time, the status of prostitution in postwar Japan was controversial, with the American occupation authorities and Japanese reformers pressuring for a ban on legal prostitution (baishun kinshi).
Yumeko is a widow who has left her son with his grandparents in the country while she struggles to support him. Hanae, the mother of a new baby, has turned to prostitution to support her family after her husband, ill with tuberculosis, lost his job. The two of them had considered suicide but are now committed to raising their son.
Yasumi is a manipulative tease who leverages her considerable sexual appeal to extract extravagant sums of money from her clients. She then lends money to her fellow prostitutes at usurious rates. Yasumi is being wooed by a hapless clerk who wants her to marry him.
Mickey, played by Machiko Kyo, an actress of limitless talent and versatility, is a streetwise tramp from Kobe, formerly a GI's girl, whose popularity with clients isn't sufficient to keep her debts from mounting. A tense moment comes when Mickey violates the prostitute's code by stealing another woman's client.
Yorie dreams about married life and has gathered a trousseau. When she is told that the government has declared prostitutes' debts void, she packs her household goods and leaves to meet her fiance.
When Yumeko's son comes to visit her at Dreamland she is afraid to face him and asks one of the other women to send him away. Repulsed by the environment in which his mother works, he is shown fleeing in embarrassment. Later, when she goes to the country to visit him, she learns that he has left for Tokyo a month earlier to work in a toy factory without telling her.
Debate continues in the Japanese Diet and the media. The Dreamland boss calls his girls together and tells them that the night world they inhabit provides employment (read: survival) for women who would otherwise be destitute. "We are like social workers," he tells them.
These stories all have sordid ends. Yorie returns to Dreamland in tears, exhausted and disillusioned by married life. Her husband had demanded that she work long hours to help him in his business, in addition to housekeeping.
Yumeko connects with her son only to be rebuffed. He scolds her for phoning his boss, and ultimately pushes her away and disowns her. There is a compelling shot of him running away outside the factory with the receding telephone and electrical wires delineating perspective.
Hanae returns to her squalid apartment one night to find her baby crying. Her husband has hanged himself. He is, however, still alive and she cuts him down and berates him for his cowardice and betrayal of her and her baby. In a later scene he arrives at dreamland with the baby on his back and tells Hanae they have been evicted. With a sigh of resignation she says she'll try to borrow rent money from the madam.
Mickey is told she has a visitor and is shocked to confront her father. He has journeyed to Tokyo to take Mikie back home. Her mother, he tells her, has died. Her younger sister's marriage prospects and his own business interests are being damaged by the stain on the family reputation caused by Mickey's sordid life.
She refuses, reminds him of his own infidelities and ill-treatment of her mother. "You must have visited the Yoshiwara yourself, " she tells him. Come on in, you can be my customer."
Only Yasumi has escaped the life. With the money she has gained from her conniving and loan sharking, she has purchased a futon shop, and we see her entertaining her former colleagues from Dreamland. She asks for their business and adds that she still makes loans.
A motion to outlaw prostitution has come up for a vote in the Japanese Diet and been defeated. The "master" calls all the women together and calls for a celebration. In the final scenes we meet a new girl from Kyushu who has come to work at Dreamland. As she hungrily attacks her rice bowl, she explains why she is there. The older woman who applies her makeup consoles her: "some girls do it with jerks and don't get paid."
So the cycle repeats itself. In a final scene we see the new girl dressed in kimono as she makes her first attempt at soliciting trade. Trembling with fright, she timidly calls out to prospective customers in a weak voice.
This film may have played a role in the eventual outlawing of prostitution in 1956. However, the Yoshiwara district had flourished since the 17th century, and not surprisingly the 1956 law had little effect on the sex trade in Japan. Mizoguchi's film serves to remind us of the sexism, exploitation and injustice that give rise to prostitution throughout history and around the world.
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