Women of the Night

Mizoguchi is never subtle in his films. His films would work better in black and white even if color was the norm in Japan. In this film the great Kinuyo Tanaka, who has starred in other Mizoguchi films, is Fusako, a war widow who also buried a son who has to become a prostitute to live. Her sister Naksuko, played by Sanae Takasuga and their sister in law Kumiko (Tomie Tsunoda) also become ones also. Osaka is depicted as being full of prostitutes, and that could have very well been accurate at the time. Mizoguchi, fascinated in many of his films with the downtrodden, does his usual superior job but the film really is essential due to the acting of Kinuyo Tanaka and Sanae Takasuga. They bring a realistic, grim situation to live. Of course, this film is not a happy one, but if you can take that, this is another near masterpiece of Kenji Mizoguchi.

This film was produced not long after World War II when Japan was militarily defeated and its economy in total ruins. As a result a large number of people were left without money and employment was sometimes difficult to obtain. That being said, this film depicts three women who have to struggle in that regard. The first woman, "Fusaka Owada" (Kinuyo Tanaka) has just lost her young son to tuberculosis just after being informed that her husband has passed away while serving in the military. Luckily, she manages to get a job as an executive secretary working for a man she greatly admires. The second woman named "Natsuko Kimishima" (Sanae Takasugi) is her sister who has recently moved in with her and works as a dancer at a nightclub. The third woman, "Kumiko Owada" (Tomie Tsunoda) is also very close to both Fusaka and Natsuko but decides to run away from where she is living in search of something new and exciting. For her efforts she falls in with the wrong crowd and is subsequently raped and forced to become a prostitute. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I found this movie to be a bit too dark and brutally harsh for my tastes. No doubt others will disagree and that is fine. However, the relentless savagery depicted by the director (Kenji Mizoguchi) was overdone in my view and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Startling, forceful tale of women descending into a life of prostitution in post-war Osaka. Kinuyo Tanaka, who would play the lost mother of the protagonists in Sansho the Bailiff, stars as a woman who lost both her husband and son to illness long after the war has ended. When her younger sister, Sanae Takasugi, steals the man she's having an affair with, she joins the streetwalkers. Mizoguchi was heavily influenced by Italian Neorealism here, and most of it was filmed in the ruined streets of Osaka. It's blunt as Hell, and arguably exploitative. Mizoguchi disowned it later in his career. The two best sequences in the film, one where a group of prostitutes denudes a young rape victim, and the final one where Tanaka comes to the rescue of the same girl when another group of prostitutes is attacking her, are the seeds that would spawn Seijun Suzuki's Gate of Flesh. That's definitely a compliment, in my book. That final sequence in particular, despite more than a little heavy-handedness (it takes place in a burnt-out church), is one of the most emotionally draining in the director's career.

In the post-war Japan, Fusako Owada (Kinuyo Tanaka) lives in the home of her mother-in-law with her baby that is ill while waits for the return of her husband from the war. When she learns that her husband has died and her baby also dies, she moves to another city with her neighbor Kumiko Owada (Tomie Tsunoda) to work as secretary executive for the opium dealer Kenzô Kuriyama (Mitsuo Nagata). One day, she stumbles upon her missed sister Natsuko Kimijima (Sanae Takasugi) that has returned from the Korea on the street and she learns that Natsuko works as a dancer in a night-club. Natsuko moves to Fusako and Kumiko's apartment and soon she has a love affair with Fusako's boss. However Fusako is secretly Kuriyama's mistress and upset, she vanishes. One day, a client of Natsuko in the night-club tells to her that he saw Fusako in the Red Light District. Natsuko that is pregnant decides to seek her sister out in the prostitution area. Will she find Fusako?

The bitter and melodramatic "Yoru no onnatachi", a.k.a. "Women of the Night", is a film directed by the great Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi that shows the cruel side of the post-war Japan specially for the women. The lead characters Fusako Owada is forced to change from a mother and housewife to a cheap prostitute that wants to contaminate men with syphilis to revenge her condition. Her sister Natsuko Kimijima may stay in the shelter for women or not after the stillbirth. In the end, there is a sort of redemption when Fusako tries to rescue from the street her neighbor and friend Kumiko Owada. However the country seems to be hopeless at that moment, at least for widows and lonely women in the depressing view of Mizoguchi. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Mulheres da Noite" ("Women of the Night")

I had seen this movie back when I was a kid, in the 1960's. Thought it was great. Today, though, I can see why I liked it so much back then, but how the acting is actually pretty bad, and the story is pretty inconsistent with actual history. Never the less, it was a nice trip into nostalgia for a Saturday afternoon. Just don't expect too much.