Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950)

 Kenji Mizoguchi's "Portrait of Madame Yuki"


At the point in his career when he made 1950's "Portrait of Madame Yuki," I would posit that Mizoguchi had yet to reach his full potential as a filmmaker. That's saying something since he had already been making films for almost 15 years by that point. I'm not quite sure about Mizoguchi yet. His direction is always utterly superb, but I have yet to take a liking to his scripts. I know, "Portrait of Madame Yuki" is an adaption of a story by Seiichi Funabashi. But, I feel as though the stories themselves in a Mizoguchi film aren't quite as engaging as his contemporaries (to this point). 

That being said, "Portrait of Madame Yuki" fits very nicely into the Mizoguchi ouevre. It centers on a woman in a loveless marriage, trying desperately to attain liberty. Mizoguchi is always intensely focused on themes involving women's struggles in a contemporary Japan (as well as historically). "Portrait of Madame Yuki" is a portrait of a woman stuck in a situation she cannot escape from, held captive by Japanese expectations. 



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