Ανέκαθεν
με ενδιέφεραν οι αιρέσεις, όπως μ’ ενδιαφέρουν οι παρεκτροπές του
ανθρώπινου πνεύματος, είτε είναι στον τομέα της θρησκείας, είτε της
κουλτούρας ή της πολιτικής. Μια ομάδα φτιάχνει ένα δόγμα, κι εκατομμύρια
άνθρωποι το υιοθετούν. Ύστερα αρχίζουν να εμφανίζονται οι σχισματικοί,
αυτοί που πιστεύουν σε όλα τα γενικά της θρησκείας, εκτός από ένα ή
μερικά σημεία. Καταδιώκονται, αποκλείονται από την ομάδα, τιμωρούνται,
κι έτσι γεννιούνται οι αιρετικές διαμάχες, όπου οι άνθρωποι μισούν
περισσότερο αυτόν που τους διαιρεί, παρά τον κοινώς ομολογούμενο εχθρό.
Πρόκειται
για μια κοινωνική δραματική ταινία σύγκρουσης γύρω από θέματα ιδιοκτησίας ενός σπιτιού
κάπου κοντά στις ακτές της Καλιφόρνια, η οποία υφαίνεται με τις θεματικές της μνήμης και της ελπίδας.
Άλλα θεματικά συστατικά που δομούν και εξελίσσουν το έργο: αμερικάνικο όνειρο/καπιταλισμός, ήθος και ηθική, μοναξιά και εγκατάλειψη, σχέσεις εξουσίας και πατριαρχικές σχέσεις (στην
Αμερική και στο Ιράν).
Αντιγράφω
την υπόθεση-πλοκή της από την Wikipedia:
«Abandoned by her husband, recovering drug
addict Kathy Nicolo, living alone in a small house near the San
Francisco Bay Area,
ignores eviction notices erroneously sent to her for nonpayment of business
taxes. Assuming the misunderstanding was cleared up months ago, she is
surprised when Sheriff's Deputy Lester Burdon arrives to forcibly evict her.
Telling Kathy that her home is to be auctioned off, Burdon feels sympathy for
her, helps her move out and advises her to seek legal assistance to regain her
house.
A former Imperial
Iranian Army
Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani who fled his homeland with his family, now lives
in the Bay Area working multiple menial jobs. Living beyond his means, he
maintains the façade of a respectable businessman so as not to shame his wife
Nadereh, son Esmail, and daughter Soraya.
Seeing the auction of Kathy's house in the
newspaper, he buys it for a quarter of its actual value, intending to improve
and sell the house. Meanwhile, Kathy is evicted from the motel she is staying
in. Having nowhere else to go, she spends the night in her car outside her
home. The next morning Kathy is angered to see her house being renovated and
confronts the workers, injuring her foot. Nadereh and Esmail treat her wound,
but her jealousy at seeing how the Behranis have settled in only makes her more
determined to get her house back.
Taking Lester's advice, Kathy finds an attorney
who assures her that because of the county's mistake, they will return
Massoud's money and the house will be restored to her. Massoud, having already
spent money on improving the house, is unwilling to accept anything less than
the much higher appraised value of the property, which the county refuses to
pay. Informed that her only option is to sue the county, Kathy instead tries to
convince Massoud to sell back the house for what he paid by telling him she and
her brother inherited it from their father. Massoud refuses and angrily forces
Kathy back into her car.
Desperate for help, Kathy seeks out Lester and
seduces him into abandoning his wife and children and becoming her protector.
Using a pseudonym, Lester confronts Massoud and threatens to have him deported
if he refuses to sell the house back to the county. Massoud reports this to the
police and identifies Lester from a photo, resulting in a reprimand by internal affairs, and gives Kathy a furious warning to back off and leave him and his
family alone. Now aware that Lester is in trouble, Kathy calls her brother
Frank, but cannot bring herself to admit that she is homeless, and he is unable
to help her.
Despondent, Kathy first considers driving to
the house and burning it, but after becoming drunk attempts suicide in the
driveway with Lester's sidearm instead. Massoud finds her in her car drunkenly
unable to discharge the gun, and brings her inside. Kathy again tries to kill
herself with pills, but Nadereh saves her by inducing her to vomit. As she and
her husband carry Kathy to the bedroom, Lester breaks into the house, retrieves
his sidearm, sees Kathy unconscious, and locks the Behranis in their own
bathroom, refusing to let them out until Massoud agrees to relinquish the
house. Massoud eventually offers to sell the house back to the county for the
price he paid and will give Kathy the money in exchange for her putting the
house in his name. Lester agrees to take Massoud and Esmail to the county office
to finalize the transaction, and Kathy reluctantly goes along with the plan.
Outside the office, Lester begins to manhandle
Massoud and Esmail seizes Lester's gun and aims it at him. Massoud grabs hold
of Lester and screams for help, drawing the attention of nearby police officers
who misinterpret the situation and shoot Esmail. Massoud is arrested but is
released after Lester confesses, and is incarcerated.
Massoud rushes to the hospital and while he is
there he prays, begging God to save his son and vowing to make whatever changes
he needs to in his life. But he finds his son did not survive. Distraught and
grief-stricken, Massoud goes home and, believing they have nothing left to live
for, kills Nadereh by lacing her tea with pills. He then dons his old military uniform, tapes a plastic dust cover over
his head, and asphyxiates himself while clutching his wife's hand. Kathy
eventually discovers the couple and frantically attempts to resuscitate Massoud
but she is too late. As the bodies of Massoud and Nadereh are taken away by
paramedics, a policeman asks Kathy if the house is hers. After a long pause,
she quietly replies, "No, it's not my house."».
Ο
Μασούντ είναι υπεύθυνος, εργατικός, δίκαιος με τον τρόπο του, πατριαρχικός,
επιθετικός, προσπαθεί να εκμεταλλευτεί την τελευταία ευκαιρία που του παρουσιάζεται
ώστε να σώσει λίγα από τα χαμένα για τον εαυτό του και την οικογένειά του.
Η
Κάθι, από την άλλη, ληθαργική στην αρχή, αφημένη και εγκαταλειμμένη,
ενεργοποιείται μέσα από αυτό το ίδιο το δραματικό συμβάν της κατάσχεσης του
πατρικού της σπιτιού. Αρχίζει να ξαναβρίσκει τον εαυτό της, ή έστω κάποιες
κακές πλευρές του, ερωτεύεται, τον λάθος όμως άνθρωπο, και έτσι υποχωρεί προς πράξεις
αυτοκαταστροφής.
Ο
βοηθός σερίφη, ο Λέστερ, θα είναι ο καταλύτης της δράσης, το μοιραίο πρόσωπο,
που με τις δικές του ατυχείς ενέργειες θα ‘λυθεί’ το δράμα – με άσχημες
συνέπειες για όλα τα συμβαλλόμενα μέλη.
Η
ταινία σχολιάζει και ενίοτε υπογραμμίζει τα εγκληματικά λάθη της γραφειοκρατίας, με ανυπολόγιστο κόστος στην ψυχική και σωματική ζωή των ανθρώπων, την απάθεια
και αργή διαδικασία ή και κωλυσιεργία του δικαστικού συστήματος απονομής
δικαιοσύνης, τη διαφθορά στην αστυνομία, όπου ο εκπρόσωπος του νόμου
παρανομεί και σπέρνει την δυστυχία και τον θάνατο. Με άλλα λόγια, πώς οι δομές επεμβαίνουν και επικαθορίζουν τη δράση και τις ζωές των ατόμων. Τ άτομα συλλαμβάνονται σε αυτό το πυκνό δίχτυ των εξουσιαστικών δομών και σχέσεων και πράττουν σύμφωνα με τα νοητικά σχήματα και τους κοινωνικούς κώδικες και αξίες, με τους οποίους έχουν κοινωνικοποιηθεί. Από την άλλη, όμως, τα άτομα δεν είναι ανεύθυνες μαριονέτες, αλλά είναι υπεύθυνα όντα και οι δράσεις και διαντιδράσεις τους με την κοινωνική πραγματικότητα μέσα από πράξεις, παραλείψεις και συμπεριφορές έχουν υλικές και άλλες συνέπειες.
Κλείνοντας,
παραθέτω έναν δραματικό διάλογο, που θεωρώ ότι τοποθετεί σε μια πολιτισμική βάση (εμείς - αυτοί) το νόημα της σύγκρουσης των δύο πρωταγωνιστών ως μέρος της σύγκρουσης δύο πολιτισμών:
Esmail: Why did that man say we
would be deported?
Behrani: I don't know. But we are
American citizens. We own this house. They can do nothing to us now.
Esmail: I feel bad for that lady,
Baba-jan.
Behrani: The woman's house was taken
from her because she did not pay her taxes. That happens when one is not
responsible.
Esmail: But...
Behrani: Do you understand? Do not
feel bad. Americans they do not deserve what they have. They have the eyes of
small children who are forever looking for the next source of distraction,
entertainment, sweet taste in the mouth. We are not like them. We know rich
opportunities when we see them and do not throw away God's blessing.
Δε χρειάζεται να σας πω ότι τα πράγματα δεν πάνε καλά. Όλοι σας το ξέρετε ότι τα πράγματα δεν πάνε
καλά. Υπάρχει πληθωρισμός. Υπάρχει ανεργία. Κόσμος πολύς απολύεται από τις δουλειές του
κι όποιος δεν απολύεται ζει με το μόνιμο φόβο ότι θάρθει κάποτε κι η δική του
σειρά. Με το δολάριο δεν αγοράζεις πια
ούτε μιας δεκάρας πράγματα. Οι τράπεζες
φαλίρανε, οι μαγαζάτορες κρύβουν κάτω από τον πάγκο τους όπλα. Οι αλήτες αλωνίζουν στους δρόμους, κάνοντας
χιλιάδες ασχήμιες, χωρίς να τους εμποδίζει κανένας. Κανένας δεν ξέρει που πάμε ή τι πρέπει να
γίνει ούτε εδώ ούτε πουθενά. Γνωρίζουμε
ότι ο αέρας που αναπνέουμε είναι μολυσμένος και το φαϊ που τρώμε ανθυγιεινό. Η τηλεόραση είναι γεμάτη βία. Οι παρουσιαστές σαν να μη συμβαίνει τίποτα, μας
πληροφορούν καθημερινά για φόνους και εγκλήματα. Όλοι ξέρουμε ότι τα πράγματα είναι
άσχημα. Τρελαθήκαμε, τρελαθήκαμε όλοι μας. Δεν βγαίνουμε έξω πια. Κλεινόμαστε στα σπίτια μας κι έτσι ο κόσμος
που ζούμε γίνεται ολοένα μικρότερος. Το
μόνο που θέλουμε είναι να μας αφήσουν στην ησυχία μας, μόνους μέσα στη σιωπή
του σαλονιού μας. Δε ζητάμε παρά την
τοστιέρα μας, την τηλεόρασή μα, το στεγνωτήρα των μαλλιών και το αυτοκίνητό μας. Για να βουλώσουμε το στόμα μας θέλουμε να μας
το μπουκώσουνε με αγαθά. Ανταλλάσουμε τη
σιωπή μας με την υλιστική χυδαιότητα κι άλλο δε ζητάμε από το να μας αφήσουν
ήσυχους. […] Δε θέλω να επαναστατήσετε,
δε θέλω να διαμαρτυρηθείτε, δε θέλω να γράψετε στο βουλευτή σας. Δεν έχω φάρμακο για τον πληθωρισμό, τους εξοπλισμούς,
τους Ρώσους και τα εγκλήματα στους δρόμους.
Εκείνο που ξέρω είναι ότι πρέπει να γίνεται έξαλλοι. Πρέπει να πείτε «Είμαι θεότρελος, δεν
ανέχομαι τίποτα πια». Είμαι άνθρωπος
πανάθεμά με, η ζωή μου έχει αξία. Γι’
αυτό θέλω τώρα, να σηκωθείτε από κει που καθόσαστε, και να πάτε στο παράθυρο,
να το ανοίξετε, να βγάλετε έξω το κεφάλι σας και να ουρλιάξετε «Είμαι
θεότρελος, δεν ανέχομαι τίποτα πια!»
Το
Ουγκέτσου Μονογκατάρι (1953)
περιλαμβάνεται στις 10 – 12 κορυφαίες κινηματογραφικές ταινίες. Ισχυρό κίνητρο για να τη δω, βέβαια, στάθηκε
το γεγονός ότι τη συμπεριλαμβάνει ο Ταρκόφσκι στη λίστα με τις 10 αγαπημένεςτου ταινίες, αλλά και τα επαινετικά σχόλια του Γκοντάρ για το σκηνοθέτη, ως έναν
από τους μεγαλύτερους σκηνοθέτες (συνήθως η λίστα των μεγάλων σκηνοθετών
περιλαμβάνει τον Ουέλς, το Ρενουάρ, το Ντράγιερ, τον Αϊζενστάιν, το Μπρεσόν,
τον Κουροσάβα –αλλά για μένα- και τους Αγγελόπουλο, Μπέργκμαν, Ταρκόφσκι,
Γκοντάρ, Μπονιουέλ, Φελίνι, Αντονιόνι, Παζολίνι…). Αλλά και οι κινηματογραφικοί κριτικοί
ομοφωνούν για το ταλέντο του δημιουργού και μάλιστα τον εκθειάζουν. «Όπως ο Μπαχ,
ο Τισιανός και ο Σαίξπηρ, είναι άριστος στην τέχνη του» αποφάνθηκε γεμάτος ενθουσιασμό
ο Γάλλος κριτικός Jean Douchet.αλλά
[…] και ο κριτικός Vincent Canby των New
York Times τον εκθείασε ως «ένας από τους μεγάλους σκηνοθέτες του
ομιλούντος κινηματογράφου» (Lopate,
2005). Πρόκειται για μια ταινία νόστου -μια επιστροφή - και, παράλληλα, αποτελεί ένα πικρό και τραγικό σχόλιο πάνω στις έμφυλες ταυτότητες και στην ανισομέρεια των σχέσεων εξουσίας που αυτές εκφράζουν.
Σημειώσεις:
Σκηνοθέτης
Mizoguchi (1898–1956) began his career in the silent
era and made dozens of fluent, entertaining studio films before arriving at his
lyrical, rigorous visual style and patented tragic humanism, around the age of
forty. His first masterworks were a pair of bitterly realistic films, made in
1936, on the subject of modern women’s struggles, Sisters of the Gion and Osaka
Elegy. These breakthroughs led to the classic Story of the Last Chrysanthemum
(1939), set in the Meiji era, about a Kabuki actor who stubbornly hones his
craft with the aid of his all-too-sacrificing lover. In this film, Mizoguchi
perfected his signature “flowing scroll,” “one shot–one scene” style of
long-duration takes, which, by keeping the camera well back, avoiding
close-ups, and linking the characters to their environment, generated hypnotic
tension and psychological density. During the early 1940s, the director was
hampered by the Japanese studios’ war propaganda effort, though he did make a
stately, two-part version of The 47 Ronin. After the war ended, he turned to a
series of intense pictures advocating progressive, democratizing ideals, which
fell in with the occupation’s values while wobbling aesthetically between subtle
refinement and hammy melodrama. (Lopate, 2005)
Σενάριο The screenplay of Ugetsu draws on literary sources from East and West. It uses two of the nine tales in Akirari Ueda’s best-known work, Tales of Moonlight and Rain (Ugetsu Monogatari, 1776). One is titled The House in the Thicket (Asaji ga Yado); the other, The Lust of the White Serpent (Jasei no in). Another source is a story titled Décoré!, by the nineteenth-century master of the French conte, Guy de Maupassant. Veteran scriptwriters Matsutaro Kawaguchi and Yoshikata Yoda wove all three stories into a single tale that is driven by a theme dear to Mizoguchi: a woman pitted against a money-oriented, male-dominated world. Set in 16th-century Japan, a period of bloody civil war, Ugetsu focuses on common people swept up in a flood tide of social upheaval. Mizoguchi wrote in a letter to Yoda: “Whether war originates in the ruler’s personal motives, or in some public concern, how violence, disguised as war, oppresses and torments the populace, both physically and spiritually! . . . I want to emphasize this as the main theme of the film.” (K. Mc Donald) (Via)
Πλοκή
Ugetsu is set in villages which line the shore of Lake
Biwa in Ōmi Province in the late 16th century. It revolves around two peasant
couples – Genjurō and Miyagi, Tōbei and Ohama – who are uprooted as Shibata
Katsuie's army sweeps through their farming village, Nakanogō. Genjurō, a
potter, takes his wares to nearby Ōmizo. He is accompanied by Tōbei, who dreams
of becoming a samurai. A respected sage tells Miyagi to warn her husband about
seeking profit in time of upheaval, and to prepare for a probable attack on the
village. Genjurō arrives with his profits, but she asks him to stop. Genjurō
nevertheless works long hours to finish his pottery. That night Nakanogō is
attacked by soldiers, and the four main characters hide out in the woods.
Genjurō decides to take the pots to a different
marketplace, and the two couples travel across a lake. Out of the thick fog
another boat appears. The sole passenger tells them he was attacked by pirates,
warns them back to their homes, then dies. The two men decide to return their
wives to the shore. Tōbei's wife refuses to go; Miyagi begs Genjurō not to
leave her, but is left on the shore with their young son, Gen'ichi, clasped to
her back. At market, Genjurō's pottery sells well. After taking his promised
share of the profits, Tōbei runs off to buy samurai armor, and sneaks into the
ranks of a clan of samurai. Lost from her companions, Ohama has wandered beyond
Nagahama in her desperate search for Tōbei. She is raped by a group of
soldiers.
Genjurō is visited by a noblewoman and her female
servant, who order several pieces of pottery and tell him to take them to the
Kutsuki mansion. Genjurō learns that Nobunaga's soldiers have attacked the
manor and killed all who lived there, except Lady Wakasa and her servant. He
also learns that Lady Wakasa's father haunts the manor. Genjurō is seduced by
Lady Wakasa, and she convinces him to marry her. Meanwhile, Nakanogō is under
attack. Miyagi and her son hide from soldiers and are found by an elderly woman
who hurries them to safety. In the woods, several soldiers desperately search
her for food. She fights with the soldiers and is stabbed. She collapses with
her son still clutching her back.
Tōbei steals the severed head of a general, which he
presents to the commander of the victorious side. He is rewarded with armor, a
mount, and a retinue. Tōbei later rides into the marketplace on his new horse,
eager to return home to show his wife. However, he visits a brothel and finds
her working there as a prostitute. Tōbei promises to buy back her honor. Later,
the two return to Nakanogō, Tōbei throwing his armor into a river along the
way.
Genjurō meets a priest, who tells him to return to his
loved ones or certain death awaits him. When Genjurō mentions the noblewoman,
the priest reveals that the noblewoman is dead and must be exorcised, and then
invites Genjurō to his home where he paints Buddhist prayers on his body.
Genjurō returns to the Kutsuki mansion. He admits that he is married, has a
child and wishes to return home. Lady Wakasa will not let him go. They admit
they are spirits, returned to this world so that Lady Wakasa, who was slain
before she knew love, could experience its joys. She tells him to wash away the
Buddhist symbols. Genjurō reaches for a sword, throws himself out of the manor,
and passes out. The next day, he is awakened by soldiers. They accuse him of
stealing the sword, but he denies it, saying it is from the Kutsuki mansion.
The soldiers laugh at him, saying the Kutsuki mansion was burned down over a
month ago. Genjurō arises and finds the mansion he has lived in is nothing more
than a pile of burnt wood. The soldiers confiscate his money; but because
Shibata's army burned down the prison, they leave Genjurō in the rubble. He
returns home by foot, searching for his wife.
Miyagi, delighted to see him, will not let him tell of
his terrible mistake. Genjurō holds his sleeping son in his arms, and
eventually lies down to sleep. The next morning, Genjurō wakes to the village
chief knocking on his door. He is surprised to see Genjurō home, and expresses
concern. He explains that he has been caring for Genjurō's son, and that the
boy must have come to his old home in the middle of the night. Genjurō calls
for Miyagi. The neighbor asks if Genjurō is dreaming, as his wife is dead.
Miyagi's spirit tells Genjurō: "I am always with you", while he
continues on pottery, and their son offers food to her. As with others, the
film closes with 終 (owari, the end), in handwritten cursive.
Two brothers,
one consumed by greed, the other by envy. In a time when the land is savaged by
marauding armies, they risk their families and their lives to pursue their
obsessions. Kenji Mizoguchi's "Ugetsu" (1953) tells their stories in
one of the greatest of all films -- one which, along with Kurosawa's "Rashomon,"
helped introduce Japanese cinema to Western audiences. The heroes are
rough-hewn and consumed by ambition, but the film style is elegant and
mysterious, and somehow we know before we are told that this is a ghost story.
The opening
shot is one of Mizoguchi's famous "scroll shots," so named for the
way it pans across the landscape like a Japanese scroll painting. We see a village,
the roofs of the rude houses weighed down by tree branches to keep them from
blowing away in the wind. We meet Genjuro (Masayuki Mori),
a potter, and his brother Tobei (Eitaro Ozawa), a farmer. Although gunshots on
the wind suggest an army is near, Genjuro is loading a cart with bowls, cups
and vases, packed in straw. His wife Miyagi (Kinuyo Tanaka)
begs him not to risk a trip to the city at this time of conflict -- to stay
home to protect her and their son. But he insists, and Tobei, filled with goofy
excitement, insists on coming along, despite the protests of his wife Ohama
(Mitsuko Mito).
Genjuro
returns with treasure: gold coins, which he insists his wife weigh in her hand.
He makes her a gift of a beautiful fabric, bought in the city, but doesn't
understand when she says that the cloth means less than his love for her. All
he can talk about is making more pots and more money. Blinded by the gold, he
returns to his work with a frenzy.
Tobei sees a
great samurai on their trip and tries to enlist in his army, but is turned away
as a "dirty beggar" because he has no armor. Now the two men plan
their next assault on the city, although when an army sweeps through on the
night they have fired the kiln, they fear their work has been lost. Not so; the
pots survive, and this time they think it will be safer to journey by boat
across the lake to the city, instead of by land.
The famous
lake scene is the most beautiful in the film. Shot partly on a tank with studio
backdrops, it creates a world of fog and mist, out of which emerges a lone
boatman who warns them of pirates. Genjuro returns to leave his wife and child
on the shore, and continues with Tobei and Ohama. In the city, his work sells
quickly, and he is invited to the castle of a beautiful noblewoman named Lady
Wakasa, who admires his craftsmanship. She's played by Machiko Kyo, one of the
greatest stars of the period, who was also the woman in "Rashomon."
Tobei wanders
off from his wife and his brother. Time passes. He clumsily kills a samurai and
steals the head of a foe that the samurai had killed. Presenting this trophy to
the samurai lord, he is praised and given a horse, a house and men to follow
him. Filled with pride, he brings his men for the night to a geisha house, only
to find that his wife, raped by soldiers after he abandoned her, has become a
geisha.
Elsewhere in
the city, Genjuro visits a fabric shop and imagines his wife's joy when he
brings her more beautiful dresses, but then Lady Wakasa appears, suggesting he
may need a guide to her castle. He is mesmerized by her strange beauty; made up
like a Noh heroine with smudges for eyebrows high on her forehead, her face
shadowed by veils and a wide straw hat, she is like no woman he has ever seen.
At the
castle, she drifts from behind screens and curtains and, regarding his simple
pots, asks him, "How is such beauty created?" She praises and seduces
him, and the critic Pauline Kael remembers she gasped with delight when he
cried, "I never dreamed such pleasures existed!" Perhaps Genjuro
should have taken warning when he heard the voice of the lady's dead father
echoing through the room, and when her lady-in-waiting advised him, "Don't
bury your talents in a small village! You must marry her!"
Mizoguchi
(1898-1956) was famous for the theory that one scene should equal one cut,
although sometimes he made exceptions. The great Yasujiro Ozu had the same
theory, with the difference that Ozu's camera never moved in his later films,
while Mizoguchi's style was constructed around flowing, poetic camera movement.
Consider a scene where Lady Wakasa visits Genjuro as he is bathing in an
outdoor pool, and as she enters the pool to join him, water splashes over the
side and the camera follows the splash into a pan across rippling water that ends
with the two of them having a picnic on the grass.
There is a
crucial sequence when Genjuro goes back into the city, and on his return to the
lakeside castle, is halted by a priest, who calls after him: "I see death
in your face! Have you encountered a ghost?" He warns Genjuro against
being "beguiled by a forbidden form of love."
Back at the
castle Lady Wakasa begins to embrace Genjuro, but recoils, crying out,
"There is something on his skin!" Indeed, the priest has covered
Genjuro with symbols of exorcism, which seem to burn the noblewoman as if they
are flames.
Lady Wakasa
is of course a ghost (we never doubted it), and there is a haunting scene when
Genjuro sees the castle as it really is, a burned ruin. There is a second ghost
in the movie who we do not suspect, and the revelation in that case creates a
touching emotional release. It comes toward the end, after both men have
returned chastened to their village, and are forgiven by their wives for the
male weakness of blinding ambition. (R. Ebert)
Το
πιο δυνατό προτέρημα της ταινίας είναι η απόλυτη ισορροπία στην κίνηση μεταξύ
ρεαλιστικού και απόκοσμου. Ο Μιζοκούτσι το πετυχαίνει αυτό καθοδηγώντας τη
σκηνοθεσία μεταξύ μια νηφάλιας, σχεδόν ντοκυμαντερίστικης και
αποστασιοποιημένης οπτικής και μερικών λυρικών και προσεκτικά χορογραφημένων σκηνικών,
όπως η σκηνή στη Λίμνη Μπίουα, όπου τα δυο ζευγάρια συναντάνε ένα πλοίο φάντασμα
στην ομίχλη. Toπερίφημο
«ανυπέρβλητο» κάδρο του Μιζογκούτσι είναι μοναδικό και αυτοφυές. Είναι ίσως ο
μοναδικός σκηνοθέτης στον κόσμο που τολμά να χρησιμοποιεί συστηματικά
αντικριστά πανοραμίκ πλάνα 180 μοιρών και μάλιστα χωρίς στιγμή να φαντάζει
απλώς ως μία προσπάθεια εντυπωσιασμού του θεατή, όπως ίσως να φαινόταν σε
κάποιον άλλο σκηνοθέτη. Η κίνηση της
κάμερας είναι απλή, φυσική, δίνοντας μεγάλη σημασία στο ντεκόρ αλλά και στη
θέση που καταλαμβάνουν σε αυτό οι ηθοποιοί. Ένας πραγματικός μετρ της τέχνης
του φοντί ανσενέ και του dissolve
που τα αξιοποιεί με τον καλύτερο δυνατό τρόπο ώστε να δημιουργήσει την αίσθηση. Η οπτική βάση έχει πάντα ένα ακουστικό
συμπλήρωμα που λειτουργεί με μια πλήρη εκφραστική αυτονομία. Η μουσική και οι
ήχοι στην ταινία είναι μια αλυσίδα σημάτων παίζοντας έναν τυπικό ρόλο που
προσδίδει την αντιρρεαλιστική αοριστία του μύθου. Έτσι η εικόνα μοιάζει να
κολυμπάει μέσα στην ακουστική ατμόσφαιρα και ο ήχος να ακουμπάει την εικόνα και
να την εξαϋλώνει. (Μ. Αγαζιώτη)
(Via)
As Mizoguchi’s great cinematographer, Kazuo Miyagawa,
stated in a 1992 interview, they used a crane 70 percent of the time in filming
Ugetsu. The camera, almost constantly moving—not only laterally but
vertically—conveys the instability of a world where ghosts come and go, life
and death flow simultaneously into each other, and everything is, finally,
transient, subject to betrayal. At her wedding to Genjuro, Lady Wakasa sings:
“The finest silk / Of choicest hue / May change and fade away / As would my
life / Beloved one / If thou shouldst prove untrue.” The camera’s viewpoint is
always emotionally significant: we look down from above as Lady Wakasa leans
over Genjuro to seduce him, as though to convey his fear and desire, while we
are practically in the mud with Tobei as he crawls along on his belly, before
witnessing his big break—the enemy general’s suicidal beheading, for which he
will take credit.
Just as the camera’s image field keeps changing
(without ever losing its elegantly apt compositional sense), so too do our
sympathies and moral judgments shift from character to character. No doubt,
Genjuro is right to want to escape the clutches of his ghostly mistress, yet
she has given him nothing but happiness and is justified in feeling betrayed by
him. Tobei is something of a clown, a buffoon, yet his pain is real enough
when, puffed up with samurai vanity, he finds his wife working in a brothel.
The complex camera movement that follows Ohama from berating a customer to stumbling
upon the open-jawed Tobei, and the ensuing passage in which she struggles
between anger, shame, and happiness at being reunited with him, demonstrate the
way that this director’s compassionate, if bitter, moral vision and his choice
of camera angle reinforce each other. Mizoguchi’s formalism and humanism are
part of a single unified expression.
Perhaps the most striking instance of this
transcendent tenderness comes toward the end, when Genjuro returns home from
his journey, looking for his wife: the camera inscribes a 360-degree arc around
the hut, resting at last on the patient, tranquil Miyagi, who we had assumed
was dead, having seen her speared earlier. We are relieved, as is Genjuro, to
see her preparing a homecoming meal for her husband and mending his kimono
while he sleeps. On awaking, he discovers that his wife is indeed dead; it
appears he has again been taken in by a woman ghost. The sole consolation is
that we (and presumably Genjuro) continue to hear the ghost of Miyaki’s voice,
as she watches her husband approvingly at his potter’s wheel, noting that he
has finally become the man of her ideals, though admitting that it is a pity
they no longer occupy the same world. One might say that Mizoguchi’s detached,
accepting eye also resembles that of a ghost, looking down on mortal
confusions, ambitions, vanities, and regrets. While all appearances are
transitory and unstable in his world, there is also a powerfully anchoring
stillness at its core, a spiritual strength no less than a virtuoso artistic
focus. The periodic chants of the monks, the droning and the bells, the
Buddhist sutras on Genjuro’s back, the landscapes surrounding human need,
allude to this unchanging reality side by side with, or underneath, the
restlessly mutable. Rooted in historical particulars, Ugetsu
is a timeless masterpiece.
(Lopate, 2005).
Ο
δαφνοστολισμένος ηρωισμός και η πολεμική καταξίωση αντιμετωπίζονται με χλεύη
και ειρωνεία, σε μία αποδόμησή τους ανεπαίσθητη αρχικά αλλά εν τέλει
ισοπεδωτική. Ο πειρασμός δεν υπάρχει παρά για να ενδώσει κάποιος και να
αξιολογήσει την ύπαρξή του πιο εποπτικά και σφαιρικά, αξιοποιώντας την αμαρτία
του ως μέσο προσωπικής καθαγίασης. Η ιαπωνική εκδοχή του μύθου του Οδυσσέα
περιλαμβάνει και αυτή μία επιστροφή στην Ιθάκη, δίχως όμως τελική αναμέτρηση και
διαφορετικού τύπου λύτρωση. Η παλιννόστηση θα επιφέρει το δεύτερο σκέλος του
διαχωρισμού ανάμεσα στο φανταστικό και το υπαρκτό, συμπλήρωμα του πρώτου,
διδακτική τιμωρία και όχι εκδικητικός αφανισμός, ενταγμένο πλήρως στη φυσική
και αταλάντευτη ροή των πραγμάτων, η οποία προϋπήρχε και θα συνεχίσει να
υπάρχει στο διηνεκές. (Γ. Παπαδημητρίου)
I learn from an
article by Gary Morris in the Bright Lights Film Journal that Mizoguchi may
have drawn on his own life in the story of "Ugetsu." When the
director was a boy of 7, Morris writes, his father lost the family fortune in a
reckless business venture. They moved to a poor district, and his 14-year-old
sister Suzu "was put up for adoption and eventually sold to a geisha
house." So perhaps the sins of the father were visited upon Mizoguchi's
two heroes.
In a career
that started in 1923, Mizoguchi ended with a series of masterpieces, including
"Life of Oharu" (1952), "Sansho the Bailiff"
(1954) and "Street of Shame" (1955), which in its consideration of
geishas perhaps draws on the life of his sister. To enter his world, like
entering Ozu's, is to find a film language that seems to create the mood it
considers; the story and its style of telling are of one piece.
The
characters in "Ugetsu" are down to earth, and in the case of Tobei,
even comic, but the story feels ancient, and indeed draws on the ghost legends
of Japanese theater. Unlike ghost stories in the West, Mizoguchi's film does
not try to startle or shock; the discovery of the second ghost comes for us as
a moment of quiet revelation, and we understand the gentle, forgiving spirit
that inspired it.
Nor are Lady
Wakasa's seduction techniques graphic; she conquers Genjuro not by being sexy
or carnal, but by being distant and unfamiliar. Always completely cloaked,
often hidden by veils, she enchants him not by the reality of flesh but by its
tantalizing invisible nearness. I was reminded of Murnau's silent masterpiece
"Sunrise"
(1928), also about a country man who abandons his wife and child to follow an
exotic woman across a lake to the sinful city. (R. Ebert)
