The other day I had somewhat of a Geisha debate with my good friends Bobby & Jenny. I won't go into details on how that chaos started but it did lead me into wanting to watch one of my many favorite movies, Memoirs of a Geisha.
The movie is based on the novel Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. It is narrated by the main character and begins with her as a young girl named Chiyo Sakamoto who is sold into a life of service. Her new life is working in a Geisha house run by Ms.Nitta a.k.a "Mother", there she has befriends another girl who was bought named Pumpkin while having difficulites with Geisha Hatsumomo. The movie continues where one day the young Chiyo is feeling sad about her life gazing off into the river when the man known as Chairmen comes her way along with two other Geishas. His kindness to her makes her desperately determined to become a Geisha to maybe have a chance to be apart of his lifestyle. One day, the Great Mameha(she's apparently Queen Geisha or something, cause when she arrives at Chiyo's place everyones scared shitless) comes to Ms.Nitta's place where she stikes a bargain to train Chiyo to become the most celebrated Geisha in all the town. Soon, Chiyo's name becomes Sayuri, and she in fact does become the most successful and sought after Geisha while having many encounters with the love of her life, Chairmen. These encounters unfortunately are interfered by Mameha's plans for her to get with Nobu or Dr.Crab to place bids on her mizuagi(virginity) due to having a tough rivalry with Hatsumomo. It's now World War II and Sayuri's life as a Geisha is now over, and must endure hard labor on a rice farm. Years later, Nobu finds Sayuri working on the farm and asks for her to return as a Geisha to help entertain the Americans during their stay in Japan. She is reunited with Mameha, Ms. Nitta, Pumpkin and her personal secret love, Chairmen. Sayuri onces again tries for the Chairmens interest, but she is backstabbed by her once friend Pumpkin for an occurence that happend during Sayuri's successful Geisha career earlier in the film. She continues her work as a Geisha where Ms.Nitta tells her a client is waiting for her in the flower garden. The client turns out to be Chairmen where he then confesses that he had planned all along to be with her and that he had asked Mameha for the favor to train her as a Geisha and everything comes full circle. The movie ends with them in an embrace and walking through the flower garden with a final narration from Sayuri. And yeah, thats the basic GIST of the movie.
Alright, now for my thoughts. Let me start by saying this film got six academy award nods, so that already says a lot about it. Memoirs of a Geisha definitely has a fairy tale theme going on in it, and actually, I noticed a lot of similarites to famous fairytales. Chamber maid working with mean step sisters and the fairy God Mother coming to her rescue? Yeah, thats Cinderella. It also has that Little Mermaid theme to it, the mermaid has the dream to become part of the human world. Chyio/Sayuri's goal is to become Geisha so that she may be with her Prince represented in the Chairmen. Or what about Beauty and the Beast? During the film Sayuri has troubles getting to soften the character Nobu, who once hated the very word Geisha, becomes madly in love with her and coming to understand the art of a Geisha (plus Nobu was fuckin' ugly so yeah, TOTALLY Beauty and the Beast). I'm pretty sure that the auther didn't intend to use or perhaps even think of those ideas, he did afterall, base the story off of an actual Geisha who is known as Sayuri in the story. Wheather he did or not, there definitely are those elements in the story that all together weaved a perfect fairy tale. Overall the story is pretty damn good, especially for you romantic freako's. Not only that, but the film itself is visually beautiful, the sets, the clothes, the women, the music, it just bleeds artistic value in evey way. I kind of wish it was in Japanese just because it would have made it seem more authentic. Many complained about the actors not actually being of Japanese decent(My Japanese teacher for one) but I think when it comes to playing as characters in movies, it's important to know that they are not themselves in the film, they are simply portraying someone else so the actors ethnic background shouldn't matter. When watching a movie you're not supposed to think of the truth behind the movie, then of course that makes it seem unrealistic and unenjoyable. The point of watching a movie is to emmerse yourself into that world for a bit and forget about the actual world you are living in for a few hours. People did the same thing about Selena, many complained about Jennifer Lopez' Puerto Rican background when Selena was Mexican. Myself I am Mexican, but I didn't care that Jennifer Lopez wasn't because in the movie she was Selena, she was Mexican in that movie. Anyway enough of that. My ONLY complaint about Memoirs of a Geisha is the usage of Japanese terminology, if your not familiar with any Japanese you might get lost as to what an Okiya, Hanamachi, Mizuage, Danna actually is. Of course if you pay close attention you'll definitely be able to figure it out, but of course some are a tad to lazy to do so haha. In any case, if you haven't seen Memoirs of a Geisha, I definitely recommend it. I think it's a great romance movie, perfect date movie, with a cultural lesson on what the heck a Geisha is.
Starring:
Zhang Ziyi - Chiyo/Sayuri
Michelle Yeoh - Mameha
Ken Watanabe - Chairmen
Kaori Momoi - Mother
Gong Li - Hatsumomo (By the way, she was almost 40 when she made this yet looked 20 somethin!)
Koji Yakuso - Nobu
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa - The Baron
Youki Kudo - Pumpkin
4/5 Stars
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