The Ghosts of You

50. Ugetsu Monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)

I believe this is reproduction of the original Japanese poster. It’s a little bit too busy for my liking. And I find the Japanese writing covers too much of it. I think that’s typical of 1950’s Japanese poster art.

Just your average story of ghosts, greed, samurais, and pottery.

It’s also the least melodramatic of the Mizoguchi films I’ve seen.

Melodrama is generally a field I am fond of, but it seems odd to me that Mizoguchi has earned such an elite reputation when most of his films end up as weepies. Usually melodrama is easily dismissed. He is a skilled film-maker, maybe you could say he’s the Japanese Douglas Sirk, making what seems to be formulaic melodramas, with tons going on underneath.

On filmaffinity.com I gave the film 8/10. Solid stuff.