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mizoguchi's portrait of the artist, Feb 18 2004
In a career littered with period films this is one of the rare examples where the master Japanese filmmaker Mizoguchi Kenji portrayed an actual historical figure, though "Utamaro and His Five Women" hardly shoots for a factual representation of an artist's life. "Utamaro" does not aim to be a literal biography but is instead an imagining of the great painter in the prime of his career and his relationship with his models - a relationship that mirrors Mizoguchi's own love/hate relationship with women. This film has the formal beauty one expects from the director, but lacks much else that is memorable. Perhaps "Utamaro" is best left for admirerers of the director - initiates to Mizoguchi should look for "Sisters of the Gion," "Osaka Elegy," "Ugetsu," "A Geisha" (aka "Gion Music Festival") or his masterpiece "Sansho the Bailiff" instead. The VHS of "Utamaro" from New Yorker is terribly blurry and also unfortunately out-of-print.
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