Osaka Elegy
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Year Released: 1936
Rating: 1.0
Young Ayako (Isuzu Yamada) tries to help her father pay off his debts by whoring herself out to her boss, but No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, and Life Is Tough For a Lady. This is clearly not the 'ideal' picture for Japanese master Mizoguchi - the Ozu-esque family drama - and there's a detached indifference throughout: the distanced camera and routine storyline fail to separate it from various other moral stories of its kind. At the end of the picture, Ayako literally walks the streets, chucked out of her house in disgrace - redemption for a whore ain't easy to come by, I guess.
