Memoirs of a Geisha

I just added another book to my reading list after seeing this movie. Memoirs of a Geisha is one of the most exquisitely tragic movies I have ever seen. The storyline delivers blow after blow to the heroine, Sayuri, and she bears them all. There are a few happy scenes for her, I think, but they are all (Well, all except one) muted, and show no passion. I posted the picture above because I think it captures some of the spectacular sets that appeared in the movie, and shows Sayuri in one of her few happy moments. It's crushing to see that it's entirely suppressed, shown only by a thin smile. I don't think she laughs at all during the movie. The picture below was one of my favorite shots in the movie. Sayuri has just given up her dream, and the look on her face is just so painful to see. She's cold, trying to freeze out any emotion, which, she says, is the job of a geisha. The sadness in this scene captures Sayuri's look for most of the movie. The real reason I loved this shot, though, is that I thought it was one of the most beautiful shots -- it soon zooms out to show her standing on a mountain with fog surrounding her. Looking at this and the other scenes, it's easy to see why it won the Oscar for best cinematography and best costuming. It was gorgeous; I got completely sucked into the movie because of it. It even made me ignore the odd accents that were used. (They weren't terrible; they just sounded...well, odd.) I recommend this movie if you're in the mood to cry or if you appreciate spectacular sets and costumes. I look forward to seeing how the scenes are set in the book.

I think I was so affected by this movie because I kept thinking that something very similar to this probably happened. I watched a documentary on A&E about this once, and I could not avoid seeing the extreme similarities. It's a very accurate movie, as far as I can tell. It illustrates what happened to the geishas after Americans came to Japan after WWII, and it's just a horrible, horrible thing. Americans have this misconception that geisha are courtesans. The thought that someone would pay a woman just for her company is completely foreign to them. That's what the Japanese did, though. Geisha were trained to sing, dance, pour tea and sake, and in the art of conversation -- a drastic difference from what a courtesan does. Unfortunately, I suspect many geisha were forced to conform to the American idea in order to survive. After all, they had no job training, and while most were relatively young, it was probably hard to lose a lifestyle of kimonos and good company and good pay. All of this is just tragic. I think I cried a little during the movie, and I really don't cry at movies.