Ugetsu

Ugetsu or Ugetsu Monogatari (雨月物語 Tales of Moonlight and Rain) (1953) Kenji Mizoguchi

Early Japanese horror meets Post WWII anti-war message. 

I remember I saw Ugetsu when I was just turning into a teenager and although I couldn’t understand the plot I was taken away by the fearlessness that Mizoguchi had for telling two stories that made me feel like I was watching someone’s life instead of watching a movie. That isn’t usually a feeling I get today but as I rewatched it the feeling lingered. The story moves in a poetic and exotic way that reminds me of a wood-blocked piece of art and the music is eerie and haunting like Kabuki. 

Mizoguchi made, seemingly against his will, a strong feminist anti-war movie with significant morals but when asked about this, Mizoguchi always downplayed that aspect and tried to recenter the attention on the drama of the families instead. This might be because Mizoguchi is also responsible for 47 Ronin which was pro-World War II propaganda. 

Nevertheless, Mizoguchi is impressive with his ability to tell stories about women and Mizoguchi knew this and exploited it to its full potential in Ugetsu. The two wives are Ohama (Mitsuko Mito) and Miyagi (Kinyuo Tanaka) and they are married to Genjurô (Masayuki Mori) a farmer and potter and Tôbei (Eitarô Ozawa) a ne’er-do-well with dreams of being a great Samurai. 

Civil war has swept Japan and in their home village, Genjurô and Tôbei are hastily getting ready to go to the market to sell their wares. After leaving, the village sage meets with Miyagi to tell her to be careful watching her husband because even a taste for a little money can make people lose sight on what is important and that her husband would be better preparing for war. He relays a rumor that Shibata’s army is coming over the mountain and could be there within a day. 

When the men return they are ecstatic with the silver they earned from the market and Genjurô lovingly brings home his wife a beautiful kimono. It was a touching moment when her plain face (from working the fields) lit up taking in the intricate silk and reminded us that although she is a strong worker and a farmer’s wife, she is still a woman who likes to be around fine things and her husband’s generosity touched me.  Miyagi asks her husband to stay home now and that the money is enough but Genjurô already has seen a vision where his art can provide luxuries for his family that they have not known in many years. He is committed to creating more pottery to take as soon as possible. Miyagi protests but ultimately relents and helps her husband spin the pottery wheel. As they are working, their child comes out to say he is hungry and Genjurô snaps at him showing that already the sage’s prophesy is beginning to take root. 

Tôbei’s return to the village was not as graceful as Genjurô’s. In the town, Tôbei humiliated himself by throwing himself at the feet of a great lord and begging to become a Samurai to which he is kicked and jested at. They tell him to not return until he has some armor and Tôbei scampers back to his village where he is chastised by Ohama for becoming the village idiot. Knowing now that he has to earn some money he helps Genjurô prepare his wares and asks him for a share of the next profit. 

When the men are asleep from an exhausting night the women continue to work by keeping the fire alive and chopping wood. I found this funny as they talked about their husbands for being tired while they both had arduous jobs themselves and had not gotten to rest yet. As they are speaking they hear a commotion and realize that the army has arrived. Rousing their husbands they prepare to flee but the men will not leave the pottery despite being in very real danger. They had neglected to prepare and Genjurô asks Miyagi to prepare rice for the woods but it is too late. Forced to evacuate they hide in the forest where Ohama quickly realizes that she has lost her husband and tries to find him. 

Tôbei had slipped back to the village where the Samurai were staying and tried to steal some armor from them while they are not looking and is almost caught. Realizing that Tôbei is gone, Genjurô becomes antsy to also return to the village to check if the kiln has gone out or not. Miyagi chases after him and asks Ohama to watch their son while she tries to stop him. In the village, the kiln has gone out but the pottery is finished. Miyagi, Genjurô, Ohama, and Tôbei hastily pack up the wares and make a plan to cross the river to a different town and sell the pottery there.

The river is filled with fog and Ohama sings a sad song as she rows across the waters, another arduous job that I can’t imagine actually being able to sustain for hours upon hours at a time. Ugetsu Monogatari translated is Tales of Moonlight and Rain which in Japanese folklore refers to a time when spirits are around and able to come through to our world. Through the fog, there is another boat that comes drifting over. First, the women are afraid that it is a ghost but inside is another tradesman who was overtaken by pirates. He warns them to watch their women because the pirates will steal their wares, rape and then kill them. The women say that this is a sign to turn back but the men will not. They drop Miyagi and her son off on the river bank and continue on their journey. Miyagi and her son are left to travel back to their home village with no money and little food while the three of them carry on together to the town. Ohama having no children of her own decision to stay and watch out for her husband, Tôbei whose behavior is often troublesome. 

At the market, we see that Genjurô’s wares are selling well and we are introduced to a beautiful, odd, and mysterious woman who purchases a large amount of his work. Genjurô is immediately captivated by her wealth and beauty and agrees to deliver the pottery to their manor after the day is through. Tôbei, with enough money to purchase armor, flees to find a smith and purposely loses his wife in the crowd. Looking everywhere for Tôbei, Ohama is overtaken by a group of samurai and raped. We see her lose her hope of escape and the men taking enjoyment out of her terror. Afterward, she curses her husband and collapses on the porch of where she has just been taken against her will. Tôbei will not return for a long time and has left her to join the legion of Samurai. 

As Genjurô makes ready to deliver the wares to the mysterious woman, he stops and admires some beautiful kimono. He is caught in a loving fantasy of imagining his wife’s face as she sees her present. His fantasy is cut short when the mysterious woman has arrived to guide him to her manor. Inside the manor, we learn that the beautiful, eerie woman is named Lady Wakasa (Machiko Kyô) of house Kutsuki. She and her nurse live there alone as her family had been killed by soldiers, but her father still haunts the manor.  She compliments Genjurô’s work and claims it is masterful and she has followed him from before in his small village. She tells him to stop working merely for commercial reasons and urges him to deepen his craft. Genjurô wants nothing more but cannot understand how such a thing could be possible as he is a farmer. Lady Wakasa seduces him and Genjurô agrees to marry her. In her manor, he experiences luxury and pleasure as he has never known before. He dresses in fine robes and works only for his aesthetic pleasure. He and Lady Wakasa have sex but it is only alluded to in a masterfully shot scene that was probably a novel idea at the time of filming but has become a staple technique now. Genjurô, in love with Lady Wakasa buys her the kimono instead.

Life before Lady Wakasa is quickly compartmentalized away as Genjurô acclimates to a life of luxury while in Tôbei’s story we see him watching a General who has been captured by a soldier. The General asks the soldier to give him an honorable death by decapitation. The soldier does so with great respect and solemnity. Once his back is turned Tôbei springs from his hiding spot and stabs the soldier in the back. He takes the head to the commander and is regarded as a great Samurai. He is given fine armor, horses, vassals, and money. Satisfied with his achievement he takes his vassals and begins to head home to show Ohama. On his way, he is stopped at a brothel where his soldiers beg him to retire for the night. Inside we see Ohama fighting with a John who is trying to sneak away without paying her. She chases him into the common room where he is stopped and she is confronted by her husband who upon seeing her resorts to his same goofy expression that he had before becoming so refined. She tells him of her fate and Tôbei is deeply ashamed that his success that he felt he had achieved because of her was really a selfish ambition and he did not care to what her fate would be on her own. He promises that he can restore her honor and she admits that her only reason for not committing suicide is her love for him and a deep desire to see him again. 

Across the water, their home village is attacked again and an old woman gives Miyagi some food and helps her and her son escape. On the road, she runs into men who are starving to death, they search her for food and she begins to fight them to protect it for her son. In the commotion they stab her. Her son begins crying and the men tumble into the back of the shot. They are clearly dying as well. Miyagi shoulders her son and continues walking injured. 

Genjurô meets a priest after having an odd interaction with a man. After telling him where he lives the man refused to accept payment and gave Genjurô his wares and asked him to leave. The priest tells him that his new wife has been dead and that he is living with an evil spirit. If Genjurô does not leave her then he will die as well. It’s a story that reminded me of the “tale within a tale” that I covered in Through a Glass Darkly. Worried about his own mortality he has the priest cover him in Buddhist prayers. Back home his wife cannot touch him and her nurse rips off the clothing covering the prayers. They urge him to wash it off and he confesses to his other wife and child. Lady Wakasa refuses to let him go after he pledged his life to her. She urges him to forget them but he suddenly cannot. Lady Wakasa’s nurse explains that they too were slain but Lady Wakasa too young to have known love has returned to walk the earth and know it in this form. The nurse urges him to think about what he is doing and that Lady Wakasa’s happiness is at risk of being dashed forever and curses him for being a man that would do that to two women and a child. In anger, Genjurô grabs a sword and starts slashing at the women. As he continues through the house it becomes darker and darker until all the flames have gone out. A beautiful shot that I hope you get to view yourself.  Outside he passes out and awakes to a ruined foundation of the Kutsuki manor. Men stumble upon him and accuse him of robbery. They take his sword and his money and send him on his way. 

When he returns to the village he finds his wife and son at home. She greets him demurely and refuses to let him speak of his “great mistake”. He pours him sake and feeds him stew as he cradles their son in his arms. Exhausted and relieved that everything is fine he goes to sleep while Miyagi hems his robes in the darkness beside him. A true quiet love. 

In the morning two village elders come to the house to look for Miyagi’s son who had disappeared in the night. They find Genjurô inside and they marvel at the connection between parent and child, but I believe it was the work of Miyagi who knew of Genjurô’s trials and arrival through keeping a watch on him. The men explain that Miyagi had died from the wound that the soldiers gave her but that the town has come together to help protect her son until his arrival home. 

We hear Miyagi as a voiceover as she watches and talks to her husband. She is proud of the man he has finally become and marvels over how his pottery has evolved, first as a commercial good, then for esthetics, and now finally as a symbol of his life in a zen way. Ohama and Tôbei are in the village had used his money as a Samurai to buy his wife’s freedom from being a Japanese “comfort girl” and cast his armor into the water. He has returned to the life of a farmer but does not seem to have such a great divide inside of himself anymore. Ohama makes food for the two families and Miyagi’s son offers his portion to his mother.

Ugetsu is a reimagining of a book of collected stories by the same name written in 1776 by Ueda Akinari. In these stories, Mizocuchi took two and joined them into one by slightly modifying both. Mizoguchi used Genjurô to weave the two together to achieve narrative continuity. Mizoguchi took the tale of Asaji ga Yado (House Amid the Thickets) where a man returns home after being unfaithful to the spirit of his wife and Jasei no In (Lust of the White Serpent) where a man falls in love with a white snake spirit that is an allegory for the man’s own desires and indiscipline. With nothing to stop it from growing the man traps his lover, the snake, in an urn and buries it.