The Lady of Musashino (1951)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Lady of Musashino (1951) – K. Mizoguchi

A “modern” Mizoguchi that takes place in the immediately post-war years and shows the immense changes in Japanese society occurring at that time.  Mizoguchi favourite Kinuyo Tanaka plays the lady in question who honours the traditions of the past, sacrificing her own desires to support her professor husband even though he openly promotes philandering and tries to initiate an affair with her cousin’s wife.  Tanaka herself is in love with her other younger cousin, recently returned from the war and living a hedonistic life in Tokyo, but secretly yearning for the pastoral life back in Musashino.  Mizoguchi paints a wistful picture of the vanishing countryside around the city and its disappearing customs (and morals?).  The cinematography is often lyrical with long shots that find the characters embedded in their setting and quiet moments that let the viewer contemplate the plot.  The plot is ultimately depressing -- this is Mizoguchi after all and he gives Tanaka another chance to show a woman’s suffering, imposed by a society that allows men more freedom (even when they use it selfishly, as Masayuki Mori’s decadent husband does).  In the end, however, this film sees Mizoguchi not yet in his finest form – his classic tragedies (The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would appear in the next few years.