After earning a high spot in the illustrious Sight & Sound poll, Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum had lofty expectations to meet for this humble reviewer, especially since Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu sits high atop my favorites list. Unfortunately, partially due to excessive expectations, The Story of the Last Chrystanthemum is a crushing disappointment, one that brews a routine narrative while failing to add the requisite spicy panache to the pot. Lest my harsh comments be misleading…this is a good movie, but I admit to being baffled by its inclusion in discussions of Mizoguchi’s best work, let alone the greatest films of all-time. Where Sansho the Bailiff and Ugetsu forge thick atmospheres enhanced by elegant compositions, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum often feels merely adequate. Combined with the pedestrian storyline, the film shows Mizoguchi at his most mediocre. (His work is never bad.)
The opening sequences introduce us to Kikunosuke, son of the legendary actor Kikugoru and an aspiring performer himself. Kikunosuke’s talents are minimal but because of his father’s reputation and social status, he’s constantly pampered and falsely praised. Only Toku, the nurse of his brother’s child, believes in Kikunosuke enough to be straightforward with him. She alerts him to the backstabbing and deceit during one of the pictures’ visual highlights, a gorgeous tracking shot from about medium length. Following this conversation, Toku is relieved of her duties as the nurse because of family concerns about the budding, socially inappropriate relationship, and Kikunosuke passionately chooses to leave his career and home for the woman whose honesty has caused him to love her.
Until this point, things move smoothly, but the next hour sharply declines in quality: the story moves sluggishly, characters interact, women scurry around, the camera zooms out and farther out, but none of it ever draws us in. It’s just there. Additionally, the ending is overly melodramatic. Consider the final shots here, where Toku pours her heart out to Kikunosuke about how she “knew he’d be a great actor, etc.” First of all, this scene could easily be predicted early on. Secondly, it’s extremely sentimental, and worsened by a cheesy score. Contrast this to the final shot in Ugetsu, filmed 14 years later. The child runs to his mother’s grave with a bowl of food, and bows to it as the camera fades out. This child, who barely seems alive during most of the film until that point, says more with this one action then the entire final scene of Chrysanthemum. In my opinion, the last fifteen minutes of Ugetsu (particularly the aforementioned penultimate shot) are among the most powerful in all of cinema, whereas the conclusion of Chrysanthemum lacks energy and originality. Mizoguchi’s “girl giving the noble man reason to live” theme was done much more effectively in Princess Yang Kwei Fei, where it fluidly developed from firmly developed characters.
Some of Mizoguchi’s composition choices are in error as well, particularly the climactic kabuki scene. We, along with Kikunosuke’s family, are supposedly witnessing his coming-out party as a performer. Unfortunately, while Mizoguchi’s long shots are usually graceful and hypnotic, his eschewing of close-ups here saps all the power from the experience, and at a time when we’re supposed to be impressed by Kikunosuke’s radical improvement as an actor. Instead, the extreme long shots leave us emotionally distant—and not in a positive, Bressonian fashion. Somehow, I doubt this is what Mizoguchi had in mind when forging the finale.
2.5/4
Princess Mononoke is Hayao Miyazaki’s most accessible picture, which is not to say that it’s commercialized in the slightest. Reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa’s Ran in epic scope, Princess Mononoke steamrolls the expectations of animation and tells a story rich in subplots. This is in no way a children’s film…but then, we’ve come to expect such maturity from Miyazaki, the director of the brilliant Nausicaa and Spirited Away. Ashitaka, a young warrior from the East, is infected with a deadly curse while killing a rampaging cursed boar. Destined to die and forced to leave his village, he travels westwards in hopes of finding a cure. Along the way, he hears of a magical Shishi-gama (Deer God) with legendary healing power and sets off to find its forest. But he quickly becomes caught in the middle of a battle between the animal Gods of the woods, led by a wolf-girl named San (also called Princess Mononoke), and the people of Irontown, a small mining village composed mostly of human outcasts. Trailing along is a small group of opportunistic Samurai who seek the Shishi-gama’s head in a quest for immortality. Ashitaka’s journey becomes multi-pronged as he struggles to bring peace to the war-ridden lands and to combat the stubbornness of the two proud clans.
Everyone in Princess Mononoke is burdened with a conflicted soul. San despises humans for abandoning her as a child and repeatedly assaulting her forest: cutting down trees and disturbing the ecological balance. A ticking time bomb, she thinks only of killing Irontown’s leader, Lady Eboshi, and restoring the forest to its pristine state. San’s fury is not demonic, simply misdirected. Lady Eboshi’s desire to control the forest stems from a fierce love for her village. If destroying the woods will make Irontown more prosperous, so be it. This web of mixed motives is one of Princess Mononoke’s greatest strengths. Not once do we feel that the characters are cardboard cutout villains and their hardships are more powerful as a result. Only Ashitaka is pure and, as he himself says, unclouded. Seeing the virtue in San and Eboshi and their tribes, he selflessly strives to create harmony between them. He puts his life at risk many times. The meaning of his curse broadens to symbolize that blind lust for complete control leads to ruin. Eboshi and San are obstinate leaders and it takes much suffering and bloodshed before they come to realize their errors in judgment. In many ways, Ashitaka represents a crossroad in the life of both Eboshi and San. To at least a certain level, he’s able to soft-spokenly prod them into an understanding of what’s right. Few movies have such clear insight.
Miyazaki’s visuals are unparalleled. A devout environmentalist, Miyazaki paints landscapes that are lush, misty, and mysterious. His imagination creates a haunting sense of nature’s fragility and regal splendor. The colors swirl, forging a rare other worldly sensation. Miyazaki and his artists visited Japan’s ancient forests to research their material for the film and the remarkable authenticity partly stems from that. Joe Hisaishi’s score is poetic. At its core, Princess Mononoke is a shockingly accurate portrayal of the neverending war between humanity and nature. Unlike today’s standard Hollywood fare, there is no manipulative ending or characters bursting into song. Rather, Ashitaka’s journey concludes in a low-key fashion that suggests content but not complete happiness.