Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Rob Marshall
Cast :
Ziyi Zhang……….Sayuri
Youki Kudoh……….Pumpkin
Michelle Yeoh……….Mameha
Suzuka Ohgo……….Chiyo
Gong Li……….Hatsumomo
Kenneth Tsang……….The General
Ken Watanabe……….Chairman
The one area of Japan that the West took a long time to understand was much of Japan’s culture from before its expansion. While Kurosawa captured much of his people’s culture and mythos in films such as Seven Samurai and Rashomon, most of Japan’s rich culture wasn’t explored too heavily in cinema outside of martial arts films. Even then it was more superficial than anything else. There’s only so much of Japanese culture one can incorporate into a Steven Seagal film, it seems. Beginning with 2003’s The Last Samurai, Hollywood seems to be more apt to turn East for inspiration than it has in years past. After Japan’s warriors had their turn in the sun, so to speak, its graceful women of myth get their turn in Memoirs of a Geisha.
Based off the book of the same name, Memoirs of a Geisha is an epic love story set in the days before World War II. A young girl named Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang) is sold by her family to a geisha house at a tender age and is raised by the women there to become a geisha. A geisha is a cultured Japanese woman, groomed for years to be the personification of culture and elegance. Trained to entertain, they were the sort of women that a man would pay a lot of money to spend time with; Geishas were a sort of noble call girl.
For Sayuri, becoming one isn’t an easy task. She has an aging diva-type rival to handle in Hatsumomo (Gong Li) with her hands all over her geisha-training partner Pumpkin (Youki Kudoh) to compete with. Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), who takes her under her wing, gives her the tools to be a famous geisha. With a fanciful memory of the Chairman (Ken Watanabe) and his generosity from her childhood guiding her desires, Memoirs of a Geisha is a film that does everything right but one major flaw that prevents it from becoming a great film.
It’s not the story. The film’s plot and structure are fantastic, as Memoirs is a tightly-paced and wonderfully done film. Rob Marshall’s previous big film was Chicago and he brings the same sort of inspired cinematography and editing to this film. Marshall has a great story to work and knows exactly the version of it he wants to tell.
It isn’t the location, either. Japan’s natural beauty and elegance are showcased, allowing the wonders of Japan to come out. His version of the time period is distinct and authentic; there’s a sense that this isn’t a great recreation of Japan before World War II, it is Japan of that time period. Marshall’s world looks great and is shot accordingly. There are plenty of great shots and segues from scene to scene, moment to moment.
It certainly isn’t the acting either. With a great cast assembled, it’s a rare display for the West of just how good the Pacific can be in terms of acting. While names like Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh aren’t well-known to members of the Western audience, they are massive stars in the Asian cinematic market for good reason. Li is delightful to hate and Yeoh is a marvel as the teacher to Sayuri.
So how does Memoirs of a Geisha not cross the border from good to great? It’s the dialogue, specifically the decision to go ahead and have the film spoke in English as opposed to subtitled leaves a lot of the film’s tenser moments without the sort of gravity they should have. It’s pretty obvious early on that the language barrier was a major difficulty for the cast. A lot of the dialogue is forced and unnatural; while the cast is able to use their bodies and the moment to provide a lot of the gravity to the situation, a lot of it is dispelled due to the language barrier.
