Utamaro and His Five Women (1946)

 Kenji Mizoguchi's "Utamaro and His Five Women"


Made during the Allied occupation of Japan after the second World War, Kenji Mizoguchi's "Utamaro and His Five Women" is often viewed as a lesser work from the renowned director. While I agree with this notion, the thing that I really engaged with the film about was its somewhat autobiographical nature. 

The film is a period piece centering on famous printmaker Kitagawa Utamaro in the 18th century. He is renowned for his portraits of women and has various women he spends time with as his models. When one of his models becomes jealous that her fiancé has left him for a concubine, Utamaro must attempt to mitigate. All the while, Utamaro is being chastised by the government for his lewd and scandalous portraits of women and has been forced to 50 days in handcuffs so that he can't continue painting. During this time, the jealous model ends up murdering his ex-fiancé and his new lover.  

The reason for the perceived autobiographical nature of the film, as pointed out by Freda Freiberg in her 2003 article for "Senses of Cinema,": "The equation Utamaro = Mizoguchi has been irresistible to most critics as the two artists did have a lot in common. Both of them worked in a popular mass-produced medium operated by businessmen, and chafed under oppressive censorship regimes; both frequented the pleasure quarters and sought the company of geishas; but, most significantly, they both achieved fame for their portraits of women." Because of this autobiographical nature, the ending of the film in which Utamaro is finally freed from his handcuffs and excitedly gets back to his portraits permits me to view it as Mizoguchi feeling as though he has not been able to make the art he has been wanting to make. First with the oppressive Japanese regime, he was only able to make nationalistic propaganda like 1941's "The 47 Ronin," then with the new Allied regime, he was not able to make anything too controversial and had to make things appear very 'democratic.' Mizoguchi was itching to get back to the gritty art he was making in the late 1930s. However, he had not yet realized that the Japanese golden age was soon on the horizon.



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