Japan is one of the world's more rigid cultures and its great filmmakers have created equally great art by telling stories of men and women who resist a tyrannous culture, whether embodied in the shogunate, the military, or any other area of national life. Unlike American films, which usually depict a victorious resister, Japanese films usually show the resistance ending in defeat--if there is a victory it is a moral one.
Orin, a blind traveling musician who is expected to remain celebate, is sexually violated and is expelled from her group. An outcast, she ultimately links up with a young man who is opposed to Japanese militarism. Although she is "available" to him, he will not take advantage of her, as he resists a culture where hypocrisy reigns and where women (and men, also) are expected to yield to superior force. He is ultimately destroyed and she takes her own life.
Please excuse any inaccuracies in my account; I last saw this film more than twenty years ago. I felt then, as I do now, that its humanistic perspective connected it to many other great Japanese films, such as the Kobayashi trilogy and Mizoguchi's "Sansho the Bailiff." It is my sincere hope that it will eventually appear on videocassette or DVD.
Orin, a blind traveling musician who is expected to remain celebate, is sexually violated and is expelled from her group. An outcast, she ultimately links up with a young man who is opposed to Japanese militarism. Although she is "available" to him, he will not take advantage of her, as he resists a culture where hypocrisy reigns and where women (and men, also) are expected to yield to superior force. He is ultimately destroyed and she takes her own life.
Please excuse any inaccuracies in my account; I last saw this film more than twenty years ago. I felt then, as I do now, that its humanistic perspective connected it to many other great Japanese films, such as the Kobayashi trilogy and Mizoguchi's "Sansho the Bailiff." It is my sincere hope that it will eventually appear on videocassette or DVD.