Movies: "Street of Shame" and "11:14"

[gurdymonkey]

My copy of the Fallen Women boxed set arrived recently and I dipped into it this weekend. http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/571

It includes Sisters of the Gion and Osaka Elegy - reviewed here: http://tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=media&thread=2218&page=1 and http://tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=media&thread=2221&page=1

I screened Street of Shame yesterday, which deals with the women living in a Yoshiwara brothel after WWII while the government is wrestling with Western pressure to outlaw prostitution.  Once again, Mizoguchi's subject is women trapped in an inescapeable situation and how they deal with it. The film closes with the timid debut of a new teenager, dressed and made up to the nines, half cowering by the door as she tries to solicit her first customer.

Still to go, Women of the Night (1948) - because I don't think I can bear to watch two of these in a weekend. I'll be interested to see what the film quality on [i]Osaka[/i] and [i]Gion[/i] looks like, as the print we saw at the PFA screening two summers ago was pretty beat up.

All the films in this set are set in the "present day" (1936 to 1956, when they were made). Criterion has released two of Mizoguchi's historical films, [i]Ugetsu[/i] and [i]Sansho the Bailiff[/i] on DVD.
I have hopes that Criterion will do something with [i]The Life of Oharu[/i] and [i]The Tale of the Last Chrysanthemums[/i] in the not too distant future.

And last night, I stumbled upon another one of those pleasant IFC surprises, a clever, darkly funny movie called 11:14.

At 11:14 in a sleepy town, there's a car accident. The plot unravels like a ball of yarn the cat's been mangling as we discover how many events and people are connected to the event. Well worth a look.

Comments

[eleryth.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing the link to the box set. The movies sound quite interesting.

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

Mizoguchi is frequently overshadowed by Kurosawa and I'm delighted to see that Criterion is doing something about it.

Well worth renting at the VERY least and owning if you fall in love with them as I have.

[eleryth.livejournal.com]

I think I would. I got to watch Gion Bayashi, and When A Woman Ascends the Stairs (both fairly old, black and white) - and they were rather enjoyable. A look at "real life" back then, not a fairy tale like Memoirs.