Kenji Mizoguchi - 1953
The play is of long takes, small people, high and low in that wonderful environment full of reeds, rivers, mist, busy busy markets (people as mist). Through these we are moved pretty quickly, along the top and/or the bottom of the screen.
This is a film about male hubris, about pride, about ethics, what one wants, what is good, about art and that vocation. Ultimately, work cannot just be dismissed, for all the problems; the high shot of the workers at the end, the return to pottery. Yet Mizoguchi is a tragedian, and this comes with the price of a kind of eternal suffering.
The infusion of ghosts, of memory, is at its best when the mis-en-scene corresponds with the boats, and best yet with pans that move to dissolves, along the earth, that cross time and space; of course the famous, restrained pan around the house. Of course, this is a terrific film.
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