The Cinema Of Naruse Mikio Analysis

729 Words2 Pages

‘For a women on this street, I must not lose,’ says Keiko to herself after suffering a chain of setbacks. As Russell points out in The Cinema of Naruse Mikio, the transition of modern city structure provide more women with more space and opportunity to survive, however, the level of female autonomy is tightly linked with the level of pecuniary status. From my perspective, this relationship resembles the shape of an hourglass, i.e., the more economically unprovided or self-sufficient you are, the larger extent of freedom you are given. Apparently, Keiko is currently stuck at the bottleneck, but Naruse dose not limit his focus merely on dwelling upon the dilemma of the heroine. Instead, he provides his audience other ‘potential’ identities or parallels of Keiko by observing other hostesses’ experiences. These female hostesses seem to flow with the tide of mizushōbai, but meanwhile they displays a gesture of strong adaptability generated from a modern subjectivity. For example, …show more content…

In the first half of the movie, Keiko performs as the mistress of the night of Ginza, genteel yet retrained, endearing yet self-respecting. After surviving one setback after another in the plight, her resilient subjectivity is delineated clearer and clearer. Granted, she does savour the disappointment and distress, but she does not linger on them pessimistically. What is more, she constantly build up her subjectivity — a compound of adaptability and individuality — through the lesson she learns from the harsh realities of

Open Document