page_title: Ugetsu
section_title: Themes
hierarchical_section_title: Ugetsu / Themes
caption_attribution_description: English: Comfort women (comfort girls) captured by U.S. Army, August 14 1944, Myitkyina. U.S. Army reported these women in their secret report which already uploaded on commons File:Japanese_Prisoner_of_War_Interrogation_Report_No._49_p1.png "Three Korean “comfort girls” (captured in Burma), photographed while being interrogated by Capt. Won Loy Chan (San Francisco, California), Tech. Sgt. Robert Honda (Hawaii) and Sgt. Hirabayashi (Seattle, Washington), all of the G-2 Myitkyina Task Force of the U.S. Army; photo dated August 14, 1944. (Source: U.S. National Archives, SC- 262580.)" Soh, C. Sarah (2008) The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan, University of Chicago Press ISBN&#58; 0226767779.&#32;
context_page_description: Ugetsu, also known as Tales of Ugetsu or Ugetsu Monogatari, is a 1953 Japanese romantic fantasy drama film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi and based on stories in Ueda Akinari's 1776 book of the same name. It is a ghost story and an example of the jidaigeki genre, starring Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō.
  Drawing its plot particularly from Ueda's tales "The House in the Thicket" and "The Lust of the White Serpent", the film is set in Azuchi–Momoyama period Japan. It is about a peasant farmer and potter who leaves his wife and young son during civil war, and is seduced by a spirit that threatens his life. A subplot involves his friend, who dreams of becoming a great samurai and chases this goal at the unintended expense of his wife.
  Major themes include the ethics of war, forbidden relationships with the spirit world, and neglect of family duty. The film won the Silver Lion Award at the 1953 Venice Film Festival and other honours. Ugetsu is one of Mizoguchi's most celebrated films, regarded by critics as a masterpiece of Japanese cinema. It is credited with simultaneously helping to popularise Japanese cinema in the West and influencing later Japanese film.
context_section_description: According to Professor Martha P. Nochimson, a common interpretation of the film is that Mizoguchi refashioned the stories of Ugetsu Monogatari to express regret about the pro-war extremism leading to World War II, with Mizoguchi personally having made the pro-war propaganda film The 47 Ronin in 1941. These reflections on militarism, greed and arrogance connected with audiences not only in Japan but around the world in the wake of the war. The subplot of Tōbei and Ohama particularly reflects the comfort women, who were made into prostitutes by the Imperial Japanese Army. Mizoguchi struggled with Daiei to give the subplot an unhappier ending than what appears in the film, in line with real comfort women's experiences after the war. Tōbei's subplot reveals the mistake of war can also be a "tragicomedy".
  According to British critic Tony Rayns the film's presentation of the vanity of a man, neglecting his family, is a critique of historic men in feudal Japanese culture. In his relationship with Wakasa, Genjūrō is insignificant and is seduced by something greater, that he can never comprehend. However, by neglecting his family, Genjūrō failed to appreciate he has already been blessed with a good life, and in the process, loses it.
  As a ghost story, the film delves into a relationship between a spirit and a living person, which runs contrary to nature and will lead to the death of the person. Although ghosts are not mentioned in the initial parts of the film, Japanese writer Kazushi Hosaka stated Mizoguchi foreshadowed it using the scenery, which suggests a detachment from real life. The scene where the protagonists cross Lake Biwa is an example, given the fogs that turn the film away from the jidaigeki genre. Professor Robin Wood argues that the film's depiction of the main ghost character evolves from the mere demon of "The Lust of the White Serpent" into the more humane and tragic Lady Wakasa, and this makes the story more complex. Wood further opines the combination of the story with "The House in the Thicket," combining the male protagonist of each tale into one character, Genjūrō, also connects the demon character and the ghost wife. Both Lady Wakasa and Miyagi are killed by a male-dominated society, and both are wronged by Genjūrō. Wood believes Ugetsu can be considered a feminist film for its exploration of the negative impact of a patriarchy.
  Genjūrō's pottery is also a major theme in the film. Professor Wood argues his pottery evolves in three phases, reflecting Mizoguchi's changing approach to filmmaking. Genjūrō begins making the pottery for commercial reasons, shifts to pure aesthetics while isolated with Lady Wakasa, and finally moves on to a style that reflects life and strives to understand it.
caption: Comfort women are referenced in Ohama's subplot.
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