The Shakespearean Resplendence of "Ugetsu Monogatari"

When watching the Turner Classic Movie airing of Ugetsu Monogatari, Ben Mankiewicz described the film as Shakespearean. I'm reminded of what Joss Whedon recently said of Shakespeare: "Shakespeare is someone that I believe lived by a motto that I strive for, which is 'subtlety is for little men.' There's tons of subtlety for texture, but he's go big or go home." He might as well be describing director Kenji Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi is telling stories in the realm of fables with grand themes and big ideas. He puts his characters through endless tragedy and devastation and all in the name of making us feel on an emotional level as big as the scope of his story. But Mizoguchi has care for detail. The look and feel of the film is beautifully shot in black and white, playing with shadows and lightness versus darkness (particularly in a scenes that have one foot in fantasy).

Ugetsu is a tale about obsession and not knowing what you have until it's gone. But Mizoguchi wants to show us the slow, slippery slope where little by little characters lose a little of their soul and their frugal rationality (It's a film of deliberateness -- Mizoguchi seems to be interested in getting to the end where he can say, "See! That's what it all meant"). Characters overreach for goals that are arbitrary and self-serving, only for it to come back and bite them in the ass. And they do it due to some singular flaw, desire for money or fame.16th century poor Japanese farmers find that the sale of pottery wares proves successful and then become caught up in their fixation on making it big (one is concerned with buying armor and a spear in order to become a samurai which is played for laughs at times). It doesn't stop there though; the grandeur turns the story into increasingly loftier and heightened storytelling. The characters are caught up in the midst of warfare and the ethereal and otherworldly creeps in to help put a finer point on the film's themes.

There's a startling beauty to Ugetsu. Its simple tale, fluid camerawork, and exquisite cinematography transport us to a fable-like world that we know to be unreal and yet it still hits close to home. 

Grade: A