Sisters of the Gion

Kenji Mizoguchi
1936

The second film in the Criterion Eclipse "Kenji Mizoguchi's Fallen Women" box is the most well known, with it's debate on the Geisha profession in a rapidly modernizing and militarizing Japan. The titular sisters are day-and-night opposites with older sis Umekichi willing to forfeit financial gain in the name of personal satisfaction in a job well done. The younger Omocha, embittered by a profession she finds degrading (her name literally translates to "plaything"), opts to con her clients and fleece them for all she can. Like the character motivations in the prior "Osaka Elegy" (1936), Mizoguchi imbues a rare quality of complexity in the depiction of his Geishas' philosophies. While Umekichi's humanity and sympathy for her downtrodden patron makes her the more appealing of the two, her unthinking servile self-sacrifice ultimately paints her as a bovine rube. Omocha's conniving verges on villainous - plying men with drinks and meddling in Umekichi's affairs behind her back - but her final sickbed howl evokes a genuine agony leveled against her forced servitude. "Sisters of the Gion" is not a subtle picture in terms of structure and drama, but is a powerful provocation for a strongly traditional society in transition. With this film, Mizoguchi poses a question he does not intend to answer.