Customer Reviews

Ugetsu [VHS]

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Profound in its sadness UGETSU is the heartbreaking story of two dirt poor villagers back in 16th century Japan. Both are married and have wives who love them just the way they are, but both men are blinded to their wives' love by envy. One to be rich the other to be a great warrior. They think that if they attain these goals they will find happiness and their wives will love them more - but that is already impossible.

Both men are granted their wishes but it doesn't bring them happiness. In fact it brings them and their wives more pain and grief then they ever knew existed. In the end they realize the happiness they had to begin with, but is it too late?

Perfect in every way, I consider this not only among the greatest films, but also one of the most important. There is a great lesson to learn here about appreciating the true happiness that might be right in front of you or already inside you.

Criterion: a Mizoguchi box set please.

Despite some disturbing scenes and issues, this is a beautiful movie. It tells the story of how the search for money and glory can destroy true happiness. What makes the story work is a lot of different things. First of all, the acting is very good. Watching in in subtitles (there wasn't any other option) helped with appreciating this facet of the movie. The scenery and costumes were pretty good as well. The directing was what was the most outstanding. I confess that I have a problem with most modern movies in that they show a heavy dependance on modern technology and declining moral standards. This enables modern films to utilize two avenues of showing more and more which leaves less and less to the imagination. The talent on display in "Ugetsu" shows how directing at its' best was a true art form; greater, often, than the acting itself. There are several scenes that come to mind. As soldiers rape and pillage, there comes a scene of a gang rape of a woman. Everything we see on film makes it clear in our minds as to what has taken place. Yet the only clothing we see removed is a pair of sandals. Another scene involves an erotic encounter in which, again we understand clearly yet are not invited to watch. There are other scenes worthy of mention but I don't want to give anything away. The way this movie moves along is another testament to its' director; Kenji Mizoguchi.

On the negative side, this movie is currently only available on VHS. I confess to being frustrated with all of my Beta movies and now all of my VHS movies seeming to head towards obsolescence. However, I have come to appreciate the quality as well as the other features of DVD's. Thus I found myself immediately focussing on the occassional snap, crackle, and pop of the VHS quality. Still, once I was engrossed in the story (and that didn't take long to happen), it either ceased to bother me or the quality improved and the movie progressed.

There is a timeless message in this movie that will reach out to just about all viewers. It has to do with identifying our values and appreciating what we have rather than what we desire. Sounds like a message we've heard before but I'm not sure it's been presented quite so well before or since.

The first time I saw this movie reminded me of my first time seeing The Passion of Joan of Arc, or Solyaris: like I had found something I had lost. Ugetsu is the story of two couples in 16th century Japan (a brother and sister and their respective spouses) and the misadventures that befall them when they set out from their village to sell pottery in the city. A hauntingly beautiful meditation on the private but universal struggle between love and greed, Ugetsu, which translates (it says here) as "Tales of a Pale and Mysterious Moon After the Rain," feels exactly like you'd expect film with that title to feel: it has the visual texture and depth of Dreyer's greatest films and the comfortable sadness of Ozu's masterpieces. Truly one of the most rewarding moviegoing experiences of my life.

The movie starts out pretty uncomfortably, two peasants in 16th century Japan who dream of richness and glory so blindly, they can't even hear the pretty straight-forward protests of their loving wives who try to convince them that their happiness is fine at home. When one, a pottery smith, makes a small bundle selling his wares, they decide to make a much larger batch together and become rich.

Forced out of their homes by an approaching war and uncertain where to go, they take their wares to a thriving market place, where the second peasant's ambition to be a samurai devides them and causes all four characters, the two peasants and their wives, to be separated, all fending for themselves amongst the war and various classes differently.

At this point the film reverses itself and instead of being a pretty skin-deep, tragic bud of greed, it blooms into a beautiful and haunting tale of obsession and illusion. The two main stories of the peasants and their wives are opposite only in their imaged realism, where one peasant falls completely under the curse of an enchanting ghost and the other lies and steals his way to fame, only both of them are eventually knocked down from their own hubris and forced to finally awaken to what their wives have said all along.

It's quite exquisite, this movie, with its long takes and its lack of the usual constructs that make up messages of obsession and greed. Once it gets beyond the small, uncomfortable, claustrophobic world of the peasant's home, it becomes audaciously challenging and mysterious, so that the same small home becomes amazingly wonderful and comforting. The very essense of the movie is breathed into the emotions of the audience in very subtle ways, making a very unforgettable cinematic experience.

--PolarisDiB

An earlier reviewer wanted to know if the title "Tales of the Pale Moon After the Rain" was a correct translation of Ugetsu Monogatari. It is. The title is taken from a 17th century collection of Japanese ghost stories of the same name, which contains this very story. It also refers to the shimmering illusions (fame and fortune) that the two protagonists are chasing before they come to their senses and return home. It also contains a subtle critique of Japan's madness during World War II. It is all these things and more in a beautifully filmed and acted masterpiece.

To me Ugetsu is the most hypnotic and well-developed example of Mizoguchi's style - he was working at his peak here. His usual technique - "one scene, one cut" - gives the film a gliding, sinuous beauty. Every scene features slowly, continuously-changing movement, and the entire film is a tour-de-foce of subtle symbolism and gripping storytelling. One of my favorite qualities of Ugetsu is the genre-defying elements in the story - suspense, adventure, period-drama, supernatural horror - and how skillfully Mizoguchi's refined and unforgettable visual style ties it all together. Ugetsu in particular also showcases Mizoguchi's proto-feminism (by subtly underlining the hubris that men can often fall prey to, causing undue hardship to the women around them) in a subtle but mature fashion, and in this light the film could be viewed as a period-drama metaphor for shifting social values in postwar Japan. In any case this is a complex and gorgeous masterpiece that will haunt you long after viewing. This one is worth going out of your way to see.

-David Alston

Another hauntingly beautiful film from the man whom Kurosawa called "The Master". Two shallow, greedy peasants abandon their faithful wives to pursue riches and glory in war-torn 16th-century Japan. They eventually learn the error of their ways and return sadder yet wiser men, but not before the wives have suffered horribly for their husbands' follies. The eternal Mizoguchi theme: men behaving badly, women taking the brunt of it. There's also a definite WWII parable here, which is made explicit at the end, when the wives admonish their husbands to throw away their armor, give up their vain dreams of glory, and stay home, where they will find a deeper satisfaction in their humble positions as craftsmen and farmers. ("War twisted our ambitions.")

Ugetsu evokes a sense of the uncanny as few other films do (Carl Dreyer's Vampyr may be its only equal in this regard). The boundary between this world and the next has never seemed so permeable, and it's all done with the surest touch and the sparest cinematic means. Who the hell needs all that Hollywood CGI claptrap when you've got a genius like Mizoguchi directing?

I wish Criterion (or some other reputable company) would hurry up and put Mizoguchi's masterpieces on DVD in high-quality transfers. They can start with this one and Sansho Dayu and then move on to his lesser-known but equally ravishing films. All we have so far on DVD is one mediocre transfer of Mizoguchi's weakest film (The 47 Ronin).

Director Kenji Mizoguchi was a perfectionist. On the set he would often demand hundreds of retakes. Plus his takes were often long in duration, his signature style known as "flowing scroll"--one shot, one scene. His high standards and methods of precision are never more evident than in Ugetsu.
This story blends the supernatural world in with our earthly domain. There is a constant dreamlike, eerie atmosphere that is soothing and graceful. It begins to unfold in a poor rural 16th century village where the fear and apprehension of war is steadily looming.
Two men get caught up in dreams of wealth and foolish ambition. They have delusions of profiting from the effects of the war. Their misguided actions shape this haunting tale of love and loss. Life and death flow simultaneously side by side and our bound to keep you mesmerized to the screen.
This is commonly referred to as the most beautiful film ever made.
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Criterion has presented an excellent 2-disc edition with tons of special features.
Interviews, appreciations, documentaries. Plus a terrific 72 page book that includes the three short stories that influenced the making of this film.

I don't know what Ugetsu Monogatari means in Japanese, but this exquisitely shot and acted movie is called "The Stories of The Pale Moon After the Rain" in my native Turkey. Maybe that's what the title means in Japanese, but whoever came up with the Turkish version of the title has found the most poetic for this sublime movie.

This ranks as my most favorite Japanese movie alongside The Ballad of Narayama, both of which depict harsh human truth with
outmost respect to human condition and without sentimentalizing or exploiting.

Sadly, neither of the movies are released on DVD here in the States. It's a great loss for all the real cinephiles, but at least we're lucky enough to have the VHS versions. Even in the low quality of video this movie is visually stunning. I can't imagine how mesmerizing it would be to watch this on DVD or better yet on the big theatre screen.

A MUST FOR CINEPHILES EVERYWHERE !

Criterion gave this release their red-carpet treatment including: a full-length extra disc bio of the director; full-length commentary; a few interviews; a seventy-page booklet; as always, restored print and sound (the quality of the movie is well-known; the score for this movie is exceptional). If you have been waiting as I have for late-period Mizoguchi DVD releases, wait no longer and pick this up.