MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

US, 2005, 145 minutes, Colour.
Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Lee, Suzuka Ohgo, Kenneth Tsang, Cary- Hiroyuki Tagawa, Ken Watanabe, Koji Yakusho, Youki Kudoh.
Directed by Rob Marshall.

This is a most beautiful film to watch. The colour photography by Australian Dion Beebe (who also shot director Rob Marshall’s Oscar-winning Chicago) is a continual delight. The lavish sets and costumes re-creating 1930s Japan are exquisitely shot, immersing the audience in this almost hermetically sealed world of the geishas which was to be suddenly destroyed by World War II.

Based on the novel by Arthur Golden, the screenplay by Robin Swicord (Little Women) takes us through the life of a young girl from a fishing village who is sold by her needy parents to the manager of a geisha house. The audience shares the apprehensions of this nine year old, her desperation, her entrapment in this world, her mistakes and working as a slave for the owner. When a kindly chairman of an electricity company buys her a strawberry ice, her life is changed and she submits to the geisha training and, under the tutelage of the most famous geisha in the town, she becomes her successor.

Life is never easy with her hard taskmasters but she also suffers the jealousy of the passionate and cruel geisha who is doomed to quick success and self-destruction.

The screenplay explains that geishas are not courtesans or wives, that they do not sell their bodies (although there is a custom for a patron to purchase the young geisha’s virginity) but that they are works of art in life with their manners, conversation skills, graceful movement, song and elegant dance.

Audiences do hear random broadcasts on the soundtrack about Hitler and Germany but there is little to indicate reasons for Japan’s entry into the war, although the chairman and his associate have fought in Manchuria. When the war does come, it means the end of the geisha world, the world of entertainment for men in high places, men in arranged marriages who rely on the geishas for company and entertainment.

The portrait of the occupying Americans at the end of the war is quite jolting, a crass group of liberators whose manners, jitterbugging and crude touristic commercialism is in rude contrast to the beauty and elegance of the geisha world.

The cast is excellent with three of China’s leading actresses most persuasive as the leads. Zhang Yiyi (Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Dragon Hidden Tiger) is a charming and vulnerable lead, Sayuri. Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Dragon) is the dignified Mameha, the geisha who coaches Sayuri. Gong Li (who made such an impact in such 90s films as Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qui Ju) chews the scenery as the spiteful Hatsumomo.

An intelligent, visual and historical immersion in a different world.

1.A famous novel? Adaptation? Audiences entering into another and strange world? The blend of fact and fiction? The background of the protest by the Japanese at Chinese actresses taking the main roles?

2.The acclaim for the film, awards and nominations?

3.The re-creation of Japan in the 1930s, the stormy coast, the small town, the enclosed world of the Geisha trainees, the residence, the restaurants, the streets? The beauty of Japan – the bridges, the rivers, the trees and blossoms? The background of Hitler in Germany in the 1930s – the snatches of broadcasts? The war experience and the contrast? Life in the countryside, hard work and the washing in the rivers? The transition to Japan, 1946, the American occupation, the garish American style? The ordinary world, the cars, the planes?

4.The colour photography, the exquisite compositions, the continued beauty? Costumes and décor? Pace and editing? The atmospheric musical score?

5.The voice-over and the perspective of Sayuri? The opening, the desperate father, selling his daughters, the rugged seacoast? The two sisters and their abduction? Taken to the town? The information about their mother and father dying? The journey? The Mother and her reaction, her kindly assistant? Sending the sister away? Chiyo staying? Aged nine, her grief, with the other girls, with Pumpkin? Trapped in this world?

6.The character of Chiyo, the nine-year-old, strong character, her feelings, longing for her sister, going out to search for her and failing, the plan to escape with her, her being trapped by the moodiness and the devices used by Hatsumomo and her being enclosed, locked away? The chores? The money debt?

7.Mother and her dominance? The assistant and her helping her? Hatsumomo and her attitude, her room, her possessions, Chiyo going in, spilling the powder, the punishments? Her being beaten? Her seeing Hatsumomo and the lover? The lies?

8.Mother, cigarette, cruel, her reputation, her decisions? The strict regime, Hatsumomo breaking the rules, her punishment? Her having trained Mameha? Mameha and her plans, the training of Chiyo, her decisions about her future? Mother and the inheritance of the house? Hatsumomo training Pumpkin? The financial offer, Mother deciding in favour of Chiyo? Her surviving the war, the aftermath? The assistant, looking after the girls, after the war?

9.The possibilities of being a geisha for Chiyo? Her watching the Geishas? The general, the baron and the men with the geishas? With Hatsumomo? Mameha and her strong sense of dignity, duty? Hatsumomo and her scheming, staining the precious kimono and delivering it? Chiyo being punished for this? The chance encounter with the chairman, his giving her the ice? Her decision then to become a geisha? Her love for the chairman?

10.The nature of geishas as explained in the screenplay? The strict training? The availability for the men? Not a sexual occupation? But to be a work of art? The selling of the virginity? Having a patron? The reputation of a geisha?

11.Chiyo and her name being changed to Sayuri? Her achievement? Mameha as her patron? The training, the rivalry with Hatsumomo, the plans to oust her? The hard work, Mother’s domination, movement, the training school, dance? Conversation? Her entry into the geisha world? The dance and its success? Mameha and cutting Sayuri’s leg? Going to the doctor – part of the plan? The bidding? The baron and his interest? Going to the house without Mameha? The attempted seduction, the rape? Mameha and her sorrow? Nobu and the Sumo wrestling, the chairman wanting Sayuri to be with Nobu? The talk, charming him? His interest in her? Her longing for the chairman, being with him, his avoiding her? After the war, Nobu’s return, his request, her becoming a geisha again, her having sex with the American – and the scandal for Nobu, his rejecting her? Pumkin’s betrayal?

12.The chairman, his status, electricity, Osaka, his planned marriage, going to the geishas? His gift to the young girl? Nobu and the Sumo wrestling? The dance, the meals? Appreciating Sayuri as a geisha? The war, his rescuing her? The destruction of the plant? The need for money after the war, American investment? Relying on Sayuri? His knowing of the liaison with the American? His love for her – his confessing the truth, a romantic ending?

13.The friendship with Pumpkin, the contrived rivalry? Hatsumomo fostering this? But not winning when she was exposed? Pumpkin after the war, an American callgirl, jitterbugging, saying she would help Sayuri but betraying her, her bitter speech about loss?

14.Mameha and her career, her relationship with the baron? Her helping Sayuri, training her, the details of the plans, the mistakes? The rape? Her sorrow? After the war, meeting Sayuri again, finding the kimono, trying to life again the geisha ethos?

15.Hatsumomo, showy, her fickle character, her relationship with the lover, Sayuri seeing them, the lover escaping? Her spite? Going to the Sumo wrestling, watching the dance? Being exposed, her anger, hurting Sayuri, the fire, burning the residence? Her rejection?

16.The role of men with the geishas, the geishas totally at the service of the men? The fixed marriages and the outlet in relationship with the geishas?

17.The coming of the war, the planes, the bombings, the fright and the escape? Sayuri and her work in the countryside, the washing? The effect on her, a normal if hard life?

18.Post-war Japan, the possibilities of reconstruction, the presence of the Americans, loud, tourists, bribes, sex? The relationship with the American general?

19.The geishas, Mameha and trying to charm the Americans, the contrast of the old world and the new?

20.The ending, Sayuri, the chairman, the declaration of love? The romantic happy ending?