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Memoirs of a Geisha December 18, 2005 |
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“Memoirs of a Geisha” takes place in a glamorously seedy world famous to the Japanese, and film buffs who have seen the ‘50’s films of Kenji Mizoguchi, most specifically “A Geisha” and “The Story of Oharu”, but little known to an American audience who would just as well equate the title with prostitution. Before seeing the Mizoguchi masterworks I too thought the term stood for a sort of high class Japanese prostitute, entertaining only the wealthiest of samurai, and later overworked businessmen with sake, dance, and sexual favors for gold coins, but that’s a misconception that is further stressed in the new film based on the 1997 bestseller by Arthur Golden, where the world of the geisha is that of entertainment, but favors aren’t of the sexual variety, but of the fantasy kind, as if the illusion of the body beneath the silk kimono is worth ten times more in thought than in realization. Because of the secret fantasy aspect to the geisha world, where if you’re even caught kissing a man it’s thought to ruin your worth, emphasis is put upon dance, politeness, dress, beauty, and respect, and since the money is in who can lure the richer clients to be their exclusive contributor (I believe patron is the word), the world is fraught with backstabbing and ugly competition, like a Miss World pageant where the winner is showered with glory, gold, and the possibility of inheriting the geisha house from her madam, and the loser suffers a loss that makes them bitter and jealous, hardly befitting of the beautiful, ultra stylish exterior of a professional geisha. It is a fabulously glamorous, sheen, secretive world of visual delights and splendor, but it’s also a troubled society that borders not only on prostitution, but slavery as well, and the film, for all of its pretty pictures and glossy exteriors, can never get away from the fact that the “floating world” of the geisha is really just a few respectable steps above modern day escort services. When war comes to Japan, rendering the once glamorous geisha virtually useless in the face of mass death and poverty, it gets even worse, as the pride and glory of the entertainers falls hard, and unlike Japan, which forged a remarkable recovery during the occupation and the immediate post-war years, the movie never recovers from the shift to the war, becoming less a film about the catty backstage treacherousness of the women, and more about economic survival, pleasing international interests, and finding love in rather unlovely surroundings. The Mizoguchi films are great because they never leave the half glorious, half debilitating sake houses of the floating world, focusing entirely on characterization rather than melodramatic love stories and diplomacy, but “Memoirs of a Geisha” gets bogged down with WWII dramatics, and what was at first a sleek examination of a secret society quickly turns into a sappy melodrama with the introduction of the occupation, sadly turning the entertainment world into an unforgivable Suzukian world of vice and unholy pleasure. Of course that’s all there in the book as well, but in print it plays as stark non-fiction, on film though, in a glossy fictionalization, it’s over-the-top, and unfortunately, a mood killer. Director Rob Marshall brings a luscious, visually sumptuous touch to the story of Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang), a girl who is sold into slavery by her poor father, and later enchanted by the world she has joined, the Kyoto floating world of the entertainment district. At first she is troubled to lose her sister to the far less glamorous red light district, but soon her beauty if being noticed by top geisha coach Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), and a rivalry is forming between herself and the house’s number one mistress, Hatsumomo (Gong Li) for the rights to eventually become madam of the house. One night, while trying to impress a handsome rich man, the Chairman (Ken Watanabe), Sayuri performs an interpretive dance number for a large crowd and is coined the best entertainer in Kyoto, and in a weird sort of subplot, her virginity is auctioned off for a record price of 15,000 Yen, thus making her a full time geisha, instead of a mere apprentice, and blurring the line between performer and prostitute, despite the prestige of it all. Naturally, all of this attention infuriates Hatsumomo, who storms out of the house after setting it on fire (cue melodrama), and walks off into the horizon, ending the entertaining secret world portion of the film and bringing upon the WWII portion with poverty and depression, as Sayuri joins a fishing village and everything turns bleak until the Chairman resurfaces, triggering the love story, and torpedoing the film into cliché riddled sap. The jarring shift in storytelling isn’t the only factor that hurts the production - frankly, Japanese characters being portrayed by Chinese actresses (however gorgeous they may be) in the English language for an American director is a problem in translation that I never quite got over – but it doesn’t help, and in the end, despite the lush photography, cherry blossoms, stunningly beautiful cast, and colorful kimonos, “Memoirs of a Geisha” is too gaudy for its own good. For fans of blatant melodrama, it’s a good choice in this season of action dramas like “King Kong” and real heartfelt dramas like “Brokeback Mountain”, but for Japanese purists, stick to the battered VHS copies of “A Geisha”, if you can find them, before giving Marshall’s problematic weeper a proper go.
by Adam Suraf
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