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Weird if alluring title aside this was one fine film by classic Japanese movie-maker Mizoguchi.The main characters of this story set in medieval rural Japan are 2 families: the potter Genjuro's and his neighbor Tobei's. Genjuro is overly enthused at the spurt in his trade during the wartime and despite concerned wife Miyagi's protests, keeps making his pots even while the village is in danger of being overrun by marauding soldiers. The flighty farmer Tobei is intent on becoming a samurai at any cost, helping Genjuro in return for a promised share that will allow him to buy armor and a spear.The inevitable samurai raid happens and, in the quest to save their lives and belongings, the 2 couples make off in a boat. However they're soon separated and each man meets his own fate paying the respective price in the restrained but knowingly ironic and darkly humorous proceedings. The narrative, which shares some kinship with Masaki Kobayashi's ghost story anthology Kwaidan, moves at a fairly brisk pace. Although the characters are very simple, they are imbued with sufficient background detail to not be empty caricatures and we follow their paths with interest. Although the characters do not have a particularly happy fate it is notable that the story never goes into annoying sob-film territory, always maintaining a correctly detached perspective.Technically the film is very stimulating. Mizoguchi has a terrific sense of capturing visuals from the perfect POV and cutting them into a deft sequence, and scenes flow very smoothly. The cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Yojimbo) serves up some very striking visuals, very notably when the families are in the boat traveling along the river islands over the silent fog-covered water, and later in scenes of Genjuro's dalliances with the mysterious lady Wasaka, where the shots spliced with such surgical precision as to appear seamless.Ugetsu definitely deserves to be seen by all film buffs.
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