Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)

Kenji Mizoguchi’s bewitching, insinuating Edo-period ghost story renders civil war as a parable of heedless male greed.

With a title sometimes flowerily translated as ‘Tales of the Pale and Silvery Moon after the Rain’, Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1953 film Ugetsu Monogatari is a lyrical blend of period drama and ghostly fable. Uprooted by civil war, two peasant couples are split apart when the men – against the counsel of their wives – leave their families in search of greater fortune.

Ugetsu Monogatari is filmed in Mizoguchi’s distanced but all-encompassing camera style, full of flowing movement and respect for the action’s context, as the story of the men’s striving assumes the quality of an allegory. The film is especially celebrated for its subtly achieved supernatural elements: the spectral appearance of a boat through the mist, and the scenes in which the potter (Masayuki Mori) is lured to the castle of the mysterious Lady Wakasa (Machiko Kyo).

“Taking a journey through a watery, misty netherworld, the film is comfortable with the uncanny, but there are real-world lessons here about the toxicity of the male ego.” Donald Clarke

“In Mizoguchi’s use of the moving camera – detached yet empathetic – to express the conflict between male and female drives, his ineffably beautiful anti-war ghost fable is unparalleled.” Graham Fuller

“Mizoguchi’s contemplative style at its most expressively Bruegelesque.” Ramsey Campbell

“Mizoguchi’s greatest film bridges the realms of reality and fantasy so effortlessly, as if both realms exist in a single construct.” Tom Gunning

1953 Japan
Directed by
Kenji Mizoguchi
Produced by
Masaichi Nagata
Written by
Matsutaro Kawaguchi, Yoshikata Yoda
Featuring
Masayuki Mori, Kinuyo Tanaka, Ichisaburo Sawamura
Running time
97 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

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Critics

Philippe Azoury
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Donald Clarke
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Roger Clarke
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Robbie Collin
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Graham Fuller
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Kevin Gough-Yates
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Tom Gunning
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Margot Benacerraf
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Eugène Green
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Mani Haghighi
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Natesh Hegde
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Léa Mysius
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Amir Naderi
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Stephen Quay
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