After Kurosawa Akira, 12 years Mizoguchi Kenji’s junior, won the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, Mizoguchi was determined to match him. While The Life of Oharu (1952) wasn’t awarded the top prize, it did take the festival’s International Award, and managed to establish Mizoguchi’s international reputation.

To start the new film season curated by film critic and Japanese cinema expert Alexander Jacoby, Japan House London presents two free, public screenings of The Life of Oharu, a magisterial chronicle of the decline and fall of a courtly lady in the wake of a forbidden love affair. The story of Oharu, a woman from a good family who goes from being a lady-in-waiting to a prostitute and finally a beggar in 17th-century Japan, was based on a prose novel by Ihara Saikaku (1642 – 93), the great chronicler of the so-called ‘floating world’: the fleeting pleasures of Japanese urban life during the early part of the Edo period (1603 – 1868). But in place of the writer’s detached, amused irony, Mizoguchi brought to his film ‘something deeper than empathy’ (in screenwriter Yoda Yoshikata’s words) for the marginalized heroine.

Tanaka Kinuyo (1909 – 77) was one of her country’s greatest actresses, as well as the first woman to sustain a career as a film director in Japan. She gave outstanding performances in films by Ozu Yasujirō, Naruse Mikio, Gosho Heinosuke and Kinoshita Keisuke, but her collaboration with Mizoguchi was her most significant; she starred in 15 of his films between 1940 and 1954. Here, in the title role, she gives one of her most moving performances.

The screenings are in Japanese with English subtitles. Duration: approx. 127 mins

Please note that this movie is rated PG and is therefore not considered suitable for an audience younger than 8 years old unaccompanied.

Guests who are booked to attend the screening can also enjoy 10% off drinks at The Stand on their way in.

Text written in collaboration with Alexander Jacoby; image © 1952 Toho Co., Ltd.

*Please note that filming and / or photography may take place at this event. Photos and footage of the event may then be used to promote Japan House London, helping more people to discover what we offer. If you have any concerns, please emailinfo@japanhouselondon.uk or contact a member of the team on site.

Booking essential | Admission free