Rent The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939)

Valueless Traditions. - The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums review by NC

A melodrama about a woman sacrificing everything for her man. The kind of film which, if made in Hollywood, would have me running for the hills, or the pills. But this is Mizoguchi, and nearly all of the elements which make Hollywood melodramas so appalling are nowhere in sight nor sound: no soppy violins, no excruciating acting, no script where the ink should have stayed in the bottle, no close-ups of anguished faces.

No close-ups at all, in fact. For Mizoguchi keeps his distance, the whole film made up of long(ish) shots and long takes, the camera following the characters, the background and surroundings taking on significance, a preference for the whole picture rather than the detail. When Otoku is told she is fired for getting too close to the family's stepson, Kikunosuke, all we see of her is a quarter-face. The larger picture is the cruel act of dismissal, not the emotion it elicits. The same thing happens later, when, on a train, Kikunosuke is told Otoku has to be left behind in order for him to become a successful actor. WHY these things happen (the antediluvian, patriarchal world, etc) is the important point, not so much the detail of how the lovers react.

Otoku thinks only of Kikunosuke. Kikunosuke thinks mainly of himself. Even when a son can see the malignity inflicted by his parents' society, he is, after all, still a man, and comes first. The story isn't all that original, it's the way it's told. And the blame doesn't lie at fate's door, it's very much the traditions of the time which have to change.

Still, Mizoguchi does pile the suffering and sorrow on the woman a bit too much - something, for instance, we do not see in the films of Ozu, which makes him, for me, the greater director. There is also the danger, because of the distant camera, of failing to dig deep into the characters. The film lasts for over two hours and twenty minutes - and feels it.

There are a few scenes from Kabuki theatre productions, with the camera placed as a member of the audience. Fascinating, valuable and alien (to this viewer). Fascinating and valuable BECAUSE alien.