UTAMARO O MEGURU GONIN NO ONNA

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, 1946.

Date: Sep 18th, 2005. Format: Television broadcast. Surrounding: Tampere.

A portrait of the artist, Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), whose style is called bi-jinga i.e. to paint beautiful women. Troubles come when his models want to be his mistresses too. He loves them all, but every model would like to own her love. It's an interesting study of passion to create and passion to love, and how difficult it is to stay alive with both of them. I found Mizoguchi's directing a bit too stabile at times. There is a wonderful scene where we see lots of women standing in a long line, and then they start to run fast to take off their kimonos and go to swim in the pool. Utamaro has an eye on one of them. It would be interesting to know how an artist who worships feminine beauty so straightforwardly in his/her works would be responsed nowadays. It might be only refreshing if some modern painter would immortalize beautiful women as sensually as Utamaro. For example, to woodblocks, like he does - why not? This film was a start for the series of Mizoguchi's films on Yle Teema. I've seen already O'Haru and Ugetsu which come next, but I try my best to watch them again. ***½