What a waste of my time!!!

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This film begins with a relatively wealthy--but extremely grouchy--old man by the name of "Sonosuke Asai" (Benkei Shiganoya) harping on all those around him for very minor issues. It's during this time that his wife "Sumiko" (Yôko Umemura) sarcastically recommends that he gets himself a young mistress since he no longer finds her appealing. That being said, it just so happens that there is a young employee at his office named "Ayako Murai" (Isuzu Yamada) that he finds quite attractive and knowing that she is in desperate need of money due to a family matter offers her the unenviable position. In any case, faced with very little choice she reluctantly accepts his offer. Unfortunately, even though she tries to do what is best for her family, she soon discovers that she has lost the respect of everyone of any consequence to her. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I initially thought that this was a comedy as the first few scenes seemed rather light-hearted. But things change rather remarkably later on. On another note, it should be mentioned that silent films lasted a bit longer in Japan than most other industrialized nations and that this was one of the first pictures to utilize sound. Be that as it may, I thought that this was a pretty good movie and I have rated it accordingly. Above average.

It's easy to imagine Kenji Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy remade into a 1930s "women's picture" starring Bette Davis, except that nothing made in Hollywood under the infantilizing Production Code would have had the depth and insight into the real problems of women that Mizoguchi's film does. Mizoguchi's direction frames the story elegantly: He begins with a shot of the neon-lighted city, backed by the pop standard "Stairway to the Stars" on the soundtrack, as day gradually breaks and the glamour of the neon fades into the drab reality of the daytime city. We go to the home of Sumiko Asai (Yoko Umemura), the head of a large pharmaceuticals company, where he berates the maids for small infractions and quarrels with his shrewish wife. The opening sets a tone of disillusionment that pervades the entire film, which becomes a sharp commentary on both traditional and contemporary sexual roles. The film's protagonist is Ayako (Isuzu Yamada), switchboard operator at Asai Pharmaceuticals, whom Asai wants to become his mistress. Ayako is reluctant -- she has a boyfriend, Nishimura (Kensaku Hara), another employee at the company -- but her feckless father (Shinpachiro Asaka) has been skimming from the till at work and has lost the money in the stock market. So she quits her job, lets Asai set her up in a fancy modern apartment, and sends her father the money he needs. After Asai's wife uncovers the arrangement, a friend of Asai's, Fujino (Eitaro Shindo), tries to move in on Ayako. But Ayako reconnects with Nishimura, who proposes to her. Uncertain how he will respond to the truth about her life -- she has told him she works in a beauty parlor -- she postpones her answer. Then she learns from her younger sister that their brother is being forced to drop out of the university because her father can't pay the tuition. She gets the money by pretending to yield to Fujino's advances, but runs to Nishimura and agrees to marry him, while also confessing her liaison with Asai. As Nishimura is pondering this information, a furious Fujino arrives and after being turned away, calls the police, charging her with theft. Nishimura cravenly tells the police that he was innocently dragged into the affair by Ayako, but because it's her first offense she is released into her father's custody. Her family, whose money problems she has dutifully solved, shuns her and her brother calls her a "delinquent." Ayako walks out into the night and we follow her to a bridge, where she looks down into the trash-filled waters. But as we wonder if she is going to commit suicide, the family doctor, who has been present at several of the crisis points in her story, happens to meet her on the bridge. She asks him if there is a cure for delinquency, and when he says no, she accepts the judgment and, holding her head high, walks away toward the camera. Yamada's terrific performance was one of several she gave for Mizoguchi, establishing her as a specialist in strong female roles - - she is perhaps best-known by Western audiences as the Lady Macbeth equivalent in Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1957). (charlesmatthews.blogspot.com)

A truly magnificent drama film which follows the downward spiral of a young Japanese woman who is surrounded by uncaring and pathetic male figures, as she earns money for her debt ridden father and brother by becoming a mistress to the head of her company. It's not really tragic or emotionally sad, as you would expect it to be. In fact, the upbeat music towards the end and quirky nature of the lead female suggests it is a dark comedy. We are laughing with Ayako at the pathetic individuals who surround her, mostly men, and the unfair situation in which she has found herself. Either way, Mizoguchi presents us with the situation plainly, and teases out some brilliant performances from his cast along the way. Great stuff!

One of the early films of Kenzi Mizoguchi, apparently the one that got him his first wide acclaim and box-office success, was a melodrama that went right for the familial gut. I think the emotional purpose, of pointing a finger right at the audience and asking "what would you do?" works because of the society that Mizoguchi was in at the time. It may be hard for some to conceive that forgiveness of something like being the "other" woman for a married man and getting arrested for a petty crime would be impossible, but in Osaka Elegy this is exactly what occurs. We feel strongly this sense of Ayako Murai wanting to do the right thing, of being a good daughter for her father who has money problems (accused of embezzlement for one thing and needing the $300), but that there's also the problem of this affair.Most of this is seen in long-takes by Mizoguchi, some well filmed and some not so much (it was 1936 and I imagine not the best equipment for, say, outdoor night shoots with little light), and we feel this cold detachment that the other characters start to feel for her, sometimes on a dime, and it leads to a point where she is just walking the streets, with nobody, a "stray" with no job and no family. I know I'm spoiling but it's important to point out the context - this is a drama that is so embedded in the melodrama of this story, of these characters struggling and being stubborn all the way, be it Ayako's father or even her ex-boss. If nothing else Mizoguchi makes a very strong identification with this character, and other characters like her family, and the nice young man who wants to just marry her... and deep down vise-versa.It's not the smoothest film (some of the cinematography is gorgeous but, again, it also jitters a bit and the print is worse for wear even in the Eclipse series), and a couple of the supporting performances like the cuckold wife is one-dimensional. Yet it's lead by an amazingly tender and tough and touching actress Isuzu Yamada, and a few scenes like the strange puppet theater scene or a specifically harsh scene where the nice young man discovers Ayako's true self and is in a stunned silence in the corner of the room are classics unto themselves. Certainly for any fan of the director's, even if it's not a complete masterpiece; maybe a look at the 90 minute cut, as opposed to the 71 minute one, will revise this review. 8.5/10