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It's easy to imagine Kenji Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy remade into a 1930s "women's picture" starring Bette Davis, except that nothing made in Hollywood under the infantilizing Production Code would have had the depth and insight into the real problems of women that Mizoguchi's film does. Mizoguchi's direction frames the story elegantly: He begins with a shot of the neon-lighted city, backed by the pop standard "Stairway to the Stars" on the soundtrack, as day gradually breaks and the glamour of the neon fades into the drab reality of the daytime city. We go to the home of Sumiko Asai (Yoko Umemura), the head of a large pharmaceuticals company, where he berates the maids for small infractions and quarrels with his shrewish wife. The opening sets a tone of disillusionment that pervades the entire film, which becomes a sharp commentary on both traditional and contemporary sexual roles. The film's protagonist is Ayako (Isuzu Yamada), switchboard operator at Asai Pharmaceuticals, whom Asai wants to become his mistress. Ayako is reluctant -- she has a boyfriend, Nishimura (Kensaku Hara), another employee at the company -- but her feckless father (Shinpachiro Asaka) has been skimming from the till at work and has lost the money in the stock market. So she quits her job, lets Asai set her up in a fancy modern apartment, and sends her father the money he needs. After Asai's wife uncovers the arrangement, a friend of Asai's, Fujino (Eitaro Shindo), tries to move in on Ayako. But Ayako reconnects with Nishimura, who proposes to her. Uncertain how he will respond to the truth about her life -- she has told him she works in a beauty parlor -- she postpones her answer. Then she learns from her younger sister that their brother is being forced to drop out of the university because her father can't pay the tuition. She gets the money by pretending to yield to Fujino's advances, but runs to Nishimura and agrees to marry him, while also confessing her liaison with Asai. As Nishimura is pondering this information, a furious Fujino arrives and after being turned away, calls the police, charging her with theft. Nishimura cravenly tells the police that he was innocently dragged into the affair by Ayako, but because it's her first offense she is released into her father's custody. Her family, whose money problems she has dutifully solved, shuns her and her brother calls her a "delinquent." Ayako walks out into the night and we follow her to a bridge, where she looks down into the trash-filled waters. But as we wonder if she is going to commit suicide, the family doctor, who has been present at several of the crisis points in her story, happens to meet her on the bridge. She asks him if there is a cure for delinquency, and when he says no, she accepts the judgment and, holding her head high, walks away toward the camera. Yamada's terrific performance was one of several she gave for Mizoguchi, establishing her as a specialist in strong female roles - - she is perhaps best-known by Western audiences as the Lady Macbeth equivalent in Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1957). (charlesmatthews.blogspot.com)

An exceptional film in that it redefines that cinematic, to a degree literary, trope, the femme-fatal. In this film we watch from her perspective. Her transgressions seem themselves a kind of victimization. Not only is sexuality the only tool a woman is given to empower herself in society, but her dignity and her sexuality are therefor put in an antagonistic relation to each other. Sexuality and sincerity become mutually exclusive in the world Mizoguchi paints. The cinematography is magnificent. Everyone looks compromised. But the last shot lets us know which victim's compromise cuts the deepest and. A feminist work in the most profound sense.

After having viewed Mizoguchi's Sisters of Gion, I decided that I really wanted to delve deeper and watch a number of his other films. Knowing that Osaka Elegy in some ways is considered the "prequel" to Sisters of Gion, I decided that it would be the next Mizoguchi film that I would watch.Unlike Sisters of Gion, Osaka Elegy does not revolve around the lives of Geisha and their patrons, but instead on the lives of those living in the bustling industrial center of Japan: Osaka. The opening sequence is quite amazing with the rapidly sped up film displaying the bright nightlife of Osaka, but upon daybreak the city looks quite dreary. While this can be said for many other large cities as well, this opening displays many of the disparities within the film especially those dealing with the poor and the rich and, of course this being a Mizoguchi film, those between men and women.Once again Mizoguchi's star actress Yamada Isuzu plays the central role in this film. However, instead of being a young geisha, Yamada's character Murai Ayako is a telephone girl at a large pharmaceutical company. However, one theme runs through these two roles: the main female character is poor and virtually the only way she can help herself is through a male.Young and attractive, Ayako gains the attention of her boss Asai, a stickler for propriety and who seems to enjoy bossing people around, however, she continues to wield off his "affections" because she is in love with Nishimura. However, Ayako's family is in quite a situation. Her father has embezzled some money from his company and if he does not pay it back he will go to jail. Being that Nishimura is unable, or maybe unwilling, to raise the money, Ayako accepts Asai's offer to become his mistress for money. However, this is only the beginning.Like Sisters of Gion, Osaka Elegy shows the role money and power have in the control of relationships and the precarious tightrope that many poor women had to walk during this period of Japanese history. Ayako is doing her best to support her family, a father, younger sister, and she even pays the tuition for her older brother, but saving face plays a more important role in her family than her actions to help save it. A wonderful film from one of Japan's early masters, Osaka Elegy is a must for those interested in pre-1945 Japanese film.

It was this film alone that drove me into an intense obsession with cinema. Mizoguchi is the great Japanese master, and Osaka Elegy reveals his genius. From his long take compositions that are taxed with complexity and tension, to his ambigious depictions of character, I felt like I had grown after I had seen this film. Notice the national allegory at the film's conclusion, a confused and lonely Japan. And his inconclusive final shot taken many years before the well known 400 Blows. The devastating melodrama is not undercut by any cinematic manipulation. I highly recommend this to any lover of the cinematic medium. Also, I am a sucker for self-reflexive Kabuki theater sequences...