Notes for Ugetsu

Film: Ugetsu

Year Of Release: 1953

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi

Notes from viewing number 1 (08.10.2021)

Rating: 10/10

- I always thought Mizoguchi should be talked as a director that is in the same league as Kurosawa and Ozu, and Ugetsu is solid proof for my case. It's one of the most atmospheric films I have ever seen. The whole film is drenched in existential dread. Each frame is a beautifully composed painting that certainly matches the work of other Japanese masters.

- Was Mizoguchi a sadist for what he did to his women as every single woman in his films experience horrible things? No. I have heard that Mizoguchi's father was brutal against his mother, and that his sitter was solid into prostitution. He is simply trying to highlight the female struggle. He hasn't borrowed his father's sadism, but he has been traumatized by it. As Nietzsche said, «When staring into the void, the void also stares into you».

- The whole cast is great, but the stand-out is Masuyuki Mori. He gives one of his best performances here. It's raw, brutal and incredibly effective. Great work.

- Ugetsu is a film about people chasing the impossible, tearing up their deepest relationships, and leaving behind what reveals itself to be the real important things in the end. It's a simple story, but an incredibly effective one too.

- One of my favorite things about Ugetsu is how it's a ghost story but hides this from you until the last 30 minutes, making the realization even more hard hitting. An incredible way to tell such a story.

- The ending is a bittersweet one, as they all find some peace, but they will never regain the life they had before. The path of egoism is a destructive one. A moving ending, as one would expect from Mizoguchi.