Mizoguchi's Street of Shame

Kenji Mizoguchi's last film, the 1956 "Akasen Chitai" ("Red-Light District" aka "Street of Shame") may not be one of his best pictures but it is one of his most interesting. As D.A. Rajakaruna, who here translates the entire script, writes: "It is not a great film like 'The Life of Oharu' or 'Ugetsu' but (it is) a document of historical and sociological importance."

One reason for this importance is the role the film is said to have played in the passing of the Prostitution Prevention Law, which was then being debated in the National Diet for the fourth time. Mizoguchi's film was released in March 1956.....

The film shows the great economic pressures under which postwar prostitutes lived. Mizoguchi's typical brothel (called Dreamland) contains a floating population of a dozen or so women, and he and his scenarist focus on six of them. Their interweaving stories constitute the subject of the film.

The women's problems are financial rather than moral........The youngest of them all, Yasumi (Ayako Wakao), devotes herself to getting rich. She even gets money by promising more than she can sell.

In her final encounter with a crooked client she defends herself: "You're a businessman..... You live by selling things and I live by selling my body...."

The other women regard Yasumi with mixed emotions..... As one of them, Miki (Machiko Kyo), says: "Even if we don't cheat other people, other people will cheat us. Unless you act like she does you'll never get out of here. She's the smart one."

Actually, some of the women look forward to the coming legal reform for reasons quite different from those which animate the reformers......Their employers however, are not so encouraging. The brothel-master notes that the bill purports to protect women. "...if this bill is passed, you will be the ones worst affected. You'll get sent to jail for entertaining — and how will you feed your families?"

Though the film may have played a part in the passing of the Prostitution Prevention Law, it is not itself propagandistic. All sides of the "problem" are shown, as well as the fact that prostitution does not invariably lead to undiluted misery.

In this, the film was somewhat different from Yoshiko Shibaki's "Suzaki Paradaisu," the novel upon which it was based. Masashige Narusawa's script concerned itself more with character than morality and sacrificed both plot and politics to analytical inquiry.

Narusawa does not describe the women's work as all fun, but neither is he on the lookout for tragedy. The value of his excellent scenario is that it is so even-handed, which gave Mizoguchi a way to create something documentary-like. The director's last film was thus also his most intensely realistic.

Not that the critics agreed. Rajakaruna has thoughtfully included in his introduction a number of quotations from contemporary reviews, both Japanese and foreign. Masao Yamauchi complained that the film was not "an inquiry into the inhumanity of the system based on women practising this profession," and one anonymous review found fault with the film for "not sufficiently deploring legalized prostitution."

Osamu Takizawa also deplored what little vindication was added. "It is like diluting excellent sake with water," he said, and Akira Iwasaki noticed a certain ambivalence in Mizoguchi himself. In referring to the final scene (a young prostitute on the street trying to attract customers) the critic says that the viewer "might get the impression that the director himself would not hesitate to visit the brothel in order to acquire her services."

This final scene came in for a lot of comment, perhaps because it found all male reviewers ambivalent. It is, however, a very Mizoguchi-like scene in that it is shot from a slight distance and goes on for a time and it is morally ambivalent. It is this, and not any supposed availability of any virgin, which makes the scene so disturbing.

In this edition of the script (and it is the script that is translated, not the finished film — hence several differences, including this final scene), Rajakaruna is scrupulous. Not only is the full script included, but sections of it (and all of the critical quotes mentioned before) are also "translated" into romaji so that one may check the translation.

Though the considerations are literary rather than filmic (there is no discussion as to how Mizoguchi filmed his script), this publication is a work that all libraries will need and all film lovers will want. Rajakaruna has already translated screen-plays by Yasurjiro Ozu, Teinoksuke Kinugasa and Akira Kurosawa, as well as Mizoguchi's "Ugetsu." This new publication is quite up to the high standards he set with his previous works.

- The Japan Times

Balanced brilliance

The sphere of contemporary art in Sri Lanka has expanded in recent times. It has a way of metamorphosing - each day, as a viewer observes a painting - it can give out a new feel, a new aura. 

So, it is no surprise that contemporary artists are beginning to come into their own and seek their true calling. One such artist is Jagath Ravindra.It is evident that social situations have a great bearing on Jagath's work.

His last exhibition which he titled Silent Figures was reflective of how society was forced to be oblivious to the sad circumstances foisted on it. In this collection of works, entitled Broken Dialogue, Jagath portrays the same stirring theme, of the turmoil faced in a society that is not at peace with itself, but this time his expressions are of a different nature. 

He has a trademark shade of brilliant vermilion that provides an inexplicable feeling of warmth and the manner in which he has used large blocks of colour sometimes broken by a solitary figure, is brilliant. Jagath's paintings are flat and do not attempt to create another dimension - in fact, he says, he is happiest when he steers away from form and dimension. In this collection of works, the human torso figures a great deal. Yet the torsos are incomplete, some of them limbless. 

He attributes this expression to the fact that despite dialogues being initiated on many levels, on many social issues, often, the results are negligible. 

He likens this to an incomplete human body, functional, yet useless. 

He favours the colour spectrum of crimson, scarlet, vermilion and carmine because he says it is the colour of power, a colour that jumps out at the viewer and virtually implores the viewer to linger a while longer. 

Jagath's forms are linear; he is not given to undulating and curved outlines. The use of colour in Jagath's paintings is shrewd and stylish. Mixing primaries might not seem such a daunting task to even an average painter, but the way he has balanced the blocks of primaries, interspersed in the brilliant background with stark white, or black to create perfect harmony, is indeed commendable. – M.V.