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The Life of Oharu

Saikaku ichidai onna (The Life of Oharu)

1952

Kenji Mizoguchi

Kinuyo Tanaka, Tsukie Matsuura, Ichiro Sugai, Toshirô Mifune ...

8.0

2,699

Drama It tells the story of Oharu, a 50-year-old woman who suffers the strict conventions of 17th century Feudal Japan. She becomes the lover of a man, but when they are discovered, Oharu and her family are obliged to live in exile.

	Media	Author	Review
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"No woman in a Japanese film that I have seen is more tragic and unforgettable than Oharu (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"
		A.H. Weiler The New York Times	"The film makes a sharp, if obvious, point. But the basic story, slowly unfolded with the majestic solemnity of vignettes on silk screens, is as obvious and lachrymose as a soap opera."
		Ed Gonzalez Slant	"'Life of Oharu' represents the Holy Grail of Japanese cinema (...) Its genius is (...) that Mizoguchi uses Oharu’s life to peel back the layers of the physical self and reveal the soul that lies bruised beneath (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"
		David Parkinson Empire	"Such rarely relieved misery could have become mawkish, but Tanaka's sincerity and Mizoguchi's finesse ensure it avoids lapsing into melodrama (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Ignatiy Vishnevetsky AV Club	"The movie’s pessimism is so thorough and nuanced that it registers not as an attitude, but as a complete worldview (...) It’s a testament to cinema’s ability to (...) serve as an honest-to-God emotional experience."
		Time Out	"The social evils exposed have an unmistakable contemporary relevance (...) An extremely elegant movie whichever way you look at it"
		Tom Dawson BBC	"Both formally beautiful and unsentimentally compassionate, 'The Life Of Oharu' deserves to be seen and appreciated on the big screen (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Philip French The Guardian	"One of his supreme masterpieces"
		Matt Brennan IndieWire	"It’s epic yet delicate, set in feudal Japan but animated by modern anxieties, at once a traditional picaresque and a bold feminist classic."
		Dave Kehr Chicago Reader	"[It] is stately, controlled, and impeccably constructed (...) A near-perfect work"

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