Have you listened to the commentary track by Tony Rayns? He suggests that instead of ghosts, Lady Wakasa and her servant are delusions that Genjuro has during a spell of madness. I had that same idea the first time I saw the film right at the scene where Lady Wakasa’s father’s helmet starts chanting. But I like that Mizoguchi doesn’t force our hand and allows us to see the Lady Wakasa interlude as either supernatural or madness.
Likewise, that wonderful scene with the boat in the fog is the most ghostly in the whole movie. But the other boat that appears out of the gloom carries a wounded man who takes a drink and then dies—not a ghost at all.
10 comments:
I really thought it was supernatural -- I didn't even consider the possibility that it was madness. That's an interesting take, though.
I thought it was supernatural, too. Not until I saw the Manor ruins and then his empty house where Miyagi suddenly appeared did it cross my mind that he was possibly having insane delusions.
It sort of fits well with his character that his ego would invent this beautiful, rich woman who thinks he and his pots are the cat's pajamas. I'll have to watch the scene again where she first appeared. And it also makes sense that his deep need to feel good about himself and his choices would invent a scenario where his wife is there tending the home fires, waiting to comfort him as she had always done in the past.
It's such a psychic comeuppance in the morning when the chief tells him Miyagi was murdered and that he, the chief, has been doing the job the father should have been there to do: taking care of his child.
I considered that it was madness, just because the ghost story fit him so well. As you said, kc, it would be just like him to imagine a lavish lifestyle with a woman who fawns over him and his pots. But then I thought maybe it was a supernatural manipulation. That somehow the ghosts knew exactly what would push his buttons and draw him into the scheme.
I love that unbroken shot when Genjuro returns home that pans all around his empty and derelict home and then comes around and shows Miyagi cooking at the fire. The contrast between what has become of Genjuro’s world and what he desires is all the more stunning since we are fully sympathetic to his desires for the first time in the film.
I liked that shot, too. It surprised me and worked beautifully.
Did anyone initially think Genjuro's son was just a ghost, too, when the wife was revealed to have died? He was supposed to be asleep then, but was quite limp when the neighbor checked on him. I didn't know whether that was a deliberate plan in direction. Perhaps that was in the extras I need to watch tonight.
Yes, I did think that about the son for a minute.
Erin, I like the "supernatural manipulation" theory, too. A smart ghost.
Kc, have you looked yet to see if the stories that the movies are based on are around? I think that one of the two is very much that of a supernatural seductress.
Perhaps the episode in the movie has such an appealing ambiguity because an effective supernatural agent would likely offer up the same temptations as ones own deluded mind. Maybe this is the origins of most tempted-by-evil-forces tales.
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