Utamaro and His Five Women - 2003-04-22

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1946, black and white, 95 minutes. Mizoguchi, who had previously engaged in painting before turning to filmmaking, created this masterpiece centered on the life of one of Japan's greatest classical painters, focusing on the inner tensions and struggles of the artist. In this regard, it may be Mizoguchi's most personal biographical film, exaggerating the story of one of the greatest painters in Japanese history on the cinema screen. The film quickly immerses the viewer into 18th-century Japanese society, presenting a corrupt image of it: a world of drunkards, prostitutes, pimps, extravagant parties, and hedonists with their complex romantic relationships, accompanied by irrational and sometimes sudden and violent emotional expressions. It should be noted that most films depicting the lives of great artists often do so by embellishing their private lives and diminishing their art, suggesting that it is the artist's personal life that gives value to their art, thus reducing the worth of the artist's work to mere sleight of hand. However, 'Utamaro' is one of the few films in this cinematic genre that can be taken seriously because Mizoguchi straightforwardly presents Utamaro's painting as an emotional process, introducing it as the only line of communication between this reclusive artist and the surrounding world. The film's protagonist is loyal to the subject of women, and due to his deep understanding of the psychological paradoxes of an artist and his relationship with life, this film is considered Mizoguchi's most personal work.