Memoirs of a geishaby librachic

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July 15, 2009: A really emotional movie about a girl who does everything she can to be with the one she loves.It is a really good show i enjoy it as it explores the colourful world of being a geisha and even the bad parts.i would totally recommend it as the the triumph at the end is makes the show worthwhile

This review was written about the DVD Wide Screen edition.

Beautiful, but could have been moreby Anonymous

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December 08, 2008: Like the book, I have a love/hate relationship with this movie. Some fluff and triteness certainly could have been trimmed from this tale, but overall I could not resist it. The raw story of children sold by parents without better options touched a nerve. So did the truth that some people are forced to do the best they can, and cannot hope or dare to dream for lives that others may take for granted. I appreciated the characters and some of their less admirable actions even better after seeing this on screen, although some other characters get lesser treatment here than in the book. This is a shame for those who haven't read it; their full stories were poignant and moving. I must admit I found myself more fond of characters other than the protagonist, and this probably hurt my enjoyment of this story told in first-person. She simply did not seem to have learned so much from her experience, or to have fully matured in either version.

The film is absolutely gorgeous, and the work put into cinematography and costuming was impressive. On the other hand, I disagreed with the slight modernization (Westernization?) of the geishas' standards of beauty and dance. I wasn't as captivated by the choreograph as I'd hoped to be, given that Sayuri's great talent was supposed to be dance. I found myself carried away by other sensory aspects of the film: musical score, vibrant colors, lighting, the feeling of the changes in weather and the seasons at different turning points in the film.

Originally I was skeptical of the decision to cast several Chinese actresses in leading roles, but I loved their performances. Gong Li is the believably beautiful but broken "diva," and Michelle Yeoh is the success, her rival, who has managed to keep a lock on her inner self to become the perfect illusion. Koji Yakusho is perfect as noble but prickly Nobu. The idea of private vs. public realities, and the illusory nature of their art and confusing relationships with their clients/patrons, and colleagues/rivals, are portrayed by all the actors very well. It offers an interesting peek into a mysterious world, and some very elegant warfare!

Still, some things about it grated on me, such as the efforts to mimic Japanese speech and poetic turns of phrase ( I did not feel the book or screenplay captured it well), the focus on Sayuri's atypical beauty, and the Cinderella quality of the tale. I was disappointed when what I perceived as the less-real-and-more-saccharine Cinderella aspects appeared to overwhelm, since I appreciated the grittier aspects of the story. In short, I thought it could have been more compelling if the creators had reigned in the romanticism and exoticism somewhat.

The ambiguity of the message of the women's role and other controversial aspects (interpretation of mizuage) were difficult for the film makers to adequately explain. The movie takes great pains to point out that the geisha were not prostitutes (over and over again the characters find ways to state this), but then the depiction of mizuage as a type of bidding for deflowering a virgin maiko makes this contention absurd. I applaud them for not shying away from the controversy anyway. The whole subject of mizuage is a battle scene, and has been followed by legal threats, undercover anthropologists, and all kinds of interesting follow-up reading.

This review was written about the DVD Wide Screen edition.

I Also Recommend: Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha.