Memoirs of a Geisha

I'm not sure we're all seeing the same movie here. One comment I keep hearing is that the actresses did not perform well, and I cannot comprehend it. Ziyi Zhang especially gave one of the best performances I have seen in years, at least. Just look at her physically shaking during her last scene with Ken Watanabe. This complete giving over to the emotion of the character is nearly unsurpassed in anything I've seen in years, and I'm a huge cinemaphile. That's not to mention the flawless way she carried the postures and demeanor of the child star that played her young self through-out, giving a sense of consistency that I have almost never seen done this well. It's early impossible to remember that these two actresses are not really the same person with the way their performances meshed. So, maybe it's the reserved nature of Asian women, and the dualing of this nature with a sense of individuality and self-expression that people are interpreting as "not understanding the character"?All I can say is, the cinematography and settings are gorgeous, as are the actresses (and what a stellar cast!), the performances are great (maybe the bar has been lowered so much lately that the degree of skill brought to the screen here is more than some people can handle). That's the only reason I can offer for the bad reactions I have heard.The story is involving, and very realistic in terms of human nature. The romance is wonderful. There are flashes of humor and some of the script is pure poetry (and as a poet you can believe me on that!) I could go on all day, but let me just say this.The movie is awesome, and the time flew by for me. It is not the over-wrought heart-rending sap that some may want it to be, but it is very true to the way most people behave, and especially in the reserved manner of the Japanese. In my book everyone involved in this deserves a huge round of kudos, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys beautiful things, and incredibly realized films. Memoirs of a Geisha is a stunning movie. I haven't read the book, but now wish I had. The movie is close to 2 1/2 hours long, but the story and scenery are so captivating, it seems so much quicker. The costumes are fantastic and it's no wonder they are nominated for Oscars.It tells the story of a little girl called Chiyo who along with her older sister, is sold by their father who has no money. The people who bought her, want to make her a geisha so she goes off to school but brings disgrace to herself and therefore they make her their slave. Upon chance, she meets a kind man who buys her a sweet cherry ice cone. She never forgets him and sees him again by chance some years later. Now she has hope and learns again (in a crash course) how to be a geisha and her new name is Sayuri.The story that unfolds from there has ups and downs but the ending is so moving that of course I cried my head off. The setting is beautiful and it made me want to go and visit Japan. The music too is lovely and I hope they do get some Oscars next week because it's a very deserving movie. There is also a great performance by an actress called Li Gong who plays 'Queen Bitch' Hatsumomo and look for a small role played by Ted Levine who we normally see in a funny role as Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in Monk.Beautiful move that you absolutely have to see. (Especially on the big screen if you still can). I read the novel this film is based on and loved it, so I was looking forward to the movie when it was released. I was pleased to see that the movie followed the book very closely. The film was absolutely beautiful, with arresting shots of the geisha as they went about their daily tasks and beautiful pans of the gorgeous faces of the actresses. There were also a few nice shots of (what was supposed to be) the Japanese countryside.The film follws Chiyo (Sayuri), a young girl from the country who grows to become one of the most celebrated geisha in pre-war Japan. I know that there was a big stink when the film came out that some of the actresses cast were Chinese, rather than Japanese, but I say phooey on that. You cast an actor to play a role. I've seen plenty of straight actors turn in wonderfully nuanced performances of gay characters. I've seen plenty of older actors play roles that were younger than they were, and vice versa. So what? The director's job is to find the right actor for the role, and that actor may or may not be the exact nationality referred to in the script. The point is, does this performer tell the story?And the performers in Memoirs of a Geisha definitely do. Ziyi Zhang (Chiyo/Sayuri), Li Gong (Hatsumomo), and Michelle Yeoh (Mameha) all give their characters a wonderful depth and subtext, and I really enjoyed them. I know that some critics also huffed about the movie being Westernized, with the actors all speaking English, etc. Wha . . . ? The movie is based on a book written by Arthur Golden, a middle-aged white guy from Tennessee. How can you get more Western than that? Anyway, I personally found the film to be a visual jewel with fabulous performances. I recommend it. I read the book then watched the movie. The book is much more detailed, as they usually are, but the movie measured up to the book at a faster pace, yet still keeping to the story. I thought both were superb. I liked being able to put a face to all the characters, it made it more interesting for me. I thought the dancing in the movie was beautiful, classy, and hypnotic. Both the book and the movie just drew me in and I had a hard time putting down the book and watched the movie alone and with my husband.I enjoyed it. I recommend reading the book first and then watching the movie. Oh dear. Where to begin? I watched the movie, all of the DVD extras on Disk 2, I read the opposing Amazon reviews, and also the original Arthur Golden book. Since every like/dislike under the sun seem already to have been voiced here, I will stay away from repeating and becoming a statistic. Before I go on, let me just say Memoirs of A Geisha pales in comparison to Hideo Gosha's 1983 film "The Geisha." The superb acting, combined with the authentic Japanese-ness and the beautifully photographed "The Geisha" puts that film in a league of its own.Three things you should know before you begin criticizing this movie. 1) The creators repeated several times in the DVD Extra Disk 2 that their movie is an impression, not a documentary. 2)This is an American movie made in Hollywood. 3) This is a movie based on a book written by a Caucasian writer based on his interviews with a geishas, one of which was Iwasaki Mineko, who went on to write her own account called A Life (because she felt Golden had twisted the real story too much).Ok. Item 1. I found the DVD Disk 2 more entertaining than the movie itself, because it put the movie next to historical archives. It was the creators' way, I felt, of giving the actual historical facts some airtime. Watching DVD Disk 2 will help straighten out many of the arguments presented here in the Amazon reviews. The creators of MOAG did consult Liza Dalby, an author herself of several books on Geishas and Japanese kimonos. So if they wanted to, they could have devoted a large percentage of their resources towards getting the historical details fairly accurate. However, the creators stressed several times that MOAG was an impression, not a documentary. This impressionistic license means that the architecture, the kimonos, the Geisha life, dance, routine, hair, makeup are all based loosely on the actual facts. The set designer (a Hollywood set designer) went to Japan for a few weeks and distilled a little bit from one building, and some more from another, and threw it all together in a (con)fusion of anachronistic and cross-cultural impressionistic town sitting in the backlot of a California town. The costume maker, another non-Japanese who does not specialize in kimonos, did some research and started churning out a kimono every few weeks (where the real one takes a year and cost what an average Japanese man might make working full time for a year). Rob Marshall, the director of Chicago (and dancer/choreographer by profession) jazzes up the Geisha dance routine, requests that his version of the Geisha is presented as "supermodels of their day." The silhouette of MOAG's geishas are almost wasp-waisted, where the actual Geishas of that time emphasized cylindrical form in their kimono profile.Japanophiles and Japanese people will undoubtedly scream murder, and they have the right to. However, if you keep in mind that MOAG is the product of the Western imagination, you will be able to watch the movie as entertainment. It would have been nice if they got the details spot on, but I doubt it will make the mainstream audience love it more.Item 2. This is an American movie made in Hollywood, produced by Steven Spielberg. People who have watched Wim Wenders's documentary Room 666 (where famous directors were asked about the future of cinema) will remember a long list of non-American directors carrying on about technology, craft, and the art of moviemaking, only to be followed by Spielberg, who sounded like an accountant whose primary concern was the bottom line. He talked about financing, funds, box office returns, and then he talked some more about money. Nothing wrong with that, but it explains the decisions they made for MOAG. You could make a movie with authentic Japanese actors speaking Japanese, with Shakuhachi, koto, and shamisen laden soundtrack, and get consultation from everyone from the Learning Channel to the History Channel. But on opening night, the cinema will have only a handful of seats occupied by stuffy academics and bookworms. Instead, take John Williams's music, throw in Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, then use all the biggest recognizable Asian actors in America, make it pretty, and pace it for American consumption. What do you get? Academy awards, money in the bank, and most importantly, thousands of people with newly whetted appetites who want to learn more about Japanese culture. The ones who have the conscientiousness to research further, will eventually obtain the accurate details anyway.I'm not saying I understand this approach, but I do understand that this is an American movie made for American consumption.Item 3. This movie is based on a book written by a Caucasian writer. Epistemologically speaking, this movie is already three steps removed from fact, if you count Mineko's self-editing in re-telling her story. There's also the case of Mineko who did not speak English as a first language, and Golden who did not speak Japanese as a first language. There's a wide chasm between transmission and perception even by the time the story reaches book form. Art is not always obligated to truth. And the history of art has always been driven by what each interpreted work (in each artist's reiteration of the fashionable themes of his or her day) revealed about the interpreter and not the interpreted. If Marshall is a choreographer, then it is only logical that he speaks in a medium he is most familiar with, dance.Though quality is not being questioned here, I am reminded of digital photography's golden rule: if you don't begin with the best original picture, subsequent edits can only go downhill from there. Both Golden and Rob Marshall never pretended they know what goes on in the pure Japanese consciousness when they dispatch their respective versions of MOAG. What I know of Japanese consciousness comes from zen koans, kimonos, the art of Ike no Taiga and Tawaraya Sotatsu, but I can tell you Memoirs of a Geisha has very little evidence of it.With all that said, I thought the movie was watchable, and it was not slow. People who complained about Zhang Ziyi's acting may want to be reminded of the Japanese classical tradition of Noh, where masks are worn during the performance, and facial expressions hidden. Combined this with the Japanese tendency to subtlety and hidden connotations, and you begin to realize maybe restraint was an intention, and expecting her to act like Lindsay Lohan may be slightly ethnocentric. Michelle Yeoh does a good job being the stately mentor to Sayuri, but her curiously orange hair did raise my eyebrows. I think the opening of the movie left out an important part of the book. We don't really know the reasons why Tanaka sold the two little girls to the okiya. In the book, we know that their parents were very poor and they lived in a country fishing village. The father was barely making ends meet, and the mother was dying. It could be proposed that the parents agreed to their girls being sold off because that was, by comparison, a better life than that which they could barely offer. If you begin on this premise, then it gives you a very different perception of what it meant to be a geisha, even though geishas are correctly depicted as people who did not have a choice.The movie is paced better than the book, and it made a story (that is already geared for public consumption) move right along. However, there were dozens of times where I found myself saying "gosh, if I hadn't read the book, I could not make the leap from the previous scene to this one." For example, we see Hatsumomo finding Sayuri's face on a poster. All that is left out includes the detail that Mameha's meteoric rise to fame came from her appearance on a poster for a celebrated annual festival. In the book, Mameha choreographed a very Japanese "dance" where Sayuri goes to the poster artist's disheveled studio and hangs out until the "suggestion" is "introduced" to him that he has a brilliant idea of using Sayuri for a model. These low-key transactions are what reminds me of traditional Asian (and Japanese) etiquette.For the purpose of the movie though, I guess it was enough to tell what it needed to tell.So if you can suspend your allegiance to factual and historical details for two hours, then it's entertainment in the form we recognize it to be. Suzuka Ohgo as the young Chiyo is absolutely adorable, and the movie is a good (but light) exposure for some of the biggest Chinese actresses working today. Gong Li's Hatsumomo translates onscreen better than it did in the novel, as her character, like Golden's story, is really about the passing of time. Watch the dvd extra on Disk 2 to round up your Hollywood intro to Geishas. If you want to go deeper and enter the actual Japanese world of storytelling, one can start with Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, and Ozu. There is also a whole pantheon of Japanese films that never make it to the US. Film lovers owe it to themselves to explore the birthplace of Clint Eastwood westerns, Star Wars, and some of Jacques Rivette's most memorable masterpieces. Rob Marshall the director engaged the author Arthur Golden to assist in making his book come to life on the screen. It is a visually stunning artistic masterpiece. The landscapes of Japan are shown in their exotic magnificence with long shots and skilled cinematography. The entire story can not be put on screen but the most unique and intriguing aspects of Chiyo's story were chosen and come to life. Chiyo is a young girl of 9 years who is sold along with her sister to a Geisha house in Kyoto, to be trained for the Geisha lifestyle. Her mother is ill and dies. Her father, a simple fisherman, can not cope with raising two young daughters. He does what he thinks is best to ensure their place in the world.Chiyo has distinctive alluring eyes which set her apart from her peers - they will likely ensure her popularity and fame, if she develops the skills associated with the geisha training. Her eyes create jealousy in the Geisha named Hatsumomo, whose working skills and talents provide the money to support the lives of everyone associated with the establishment which bought Chiyo. A rivalry develops within the establishement over who will be chosen as successor to Mamasan/Mother, the owner of the Geisha house. Mother had no daughters of her own. She keeps Hatsumomo and the geisha trainees guessing as to her plans. She is a skilled businesswoman and plays her cards very close-fisted ...Chiyo feels locked up and imprisoned in the Geisha establishment. She wants very badly to see her sister, Satsu. Hatsumomo, the head Geisha uses this knowledge against Chiyo. Hatsumomo is a selfish spoiled Geisha -she treats the young trainees badly as she looks to satisfy her every whim. Chiyo manages to escape the establishment looking for her sister and by pure chance meets a kindly gentleman in the park who lends her his handkerchief and is the first person to show her kindness since she came to Kyoto. She never forgets his face and longs to meet him again ... when she is full-fledged Geisha ...Her wishes come true much later ... In this instance, despite being punished for escaping the establishement, some kind of miracle brought Mameha, a very famous Geisha to ask to train Chiyo. She takes her under her wing and Chiyo becomes Mameha's "little sister". A strong rivalry develops between Hatsumomo and her little sister nick-named "Pumpkin" (due to her round face) and Mameha and Chiyo. Mameha has connections and uses various techniques to bring Chiyo to the attention of famous patrons of the Tea houses where the Geisha perform and entertain. Chiyo is renamed "Sayuri" and performs a beguiling dance for the patrons at a party which establishes her as ready for "bidding" ... Very wealthy patrons bid for the right to her "mizuage" (virginity). The higher the price, the more famous and established a Geisha she becomes. Mameha uses her expertise to ensure Chiyo/Sayuri's bids go higher and higher. Hatsumomo uses all her power to try to prevent this and get Pumpkin her "little sister" to be the most popular and recognized newest Geisha ... Through Mameha's help, Sayuri manages to gain recognition and bring in high bids. Her fame is established. She does indeed meet the Chairman, the man who was kind to her in the park whom she discovers is the Director of the Imawura Electric Company. But due to his personal relationship and honor debt which he owes to his partner Nobu, it is Nobu with whom Sayuri must develop and cultivate a friendship ... Sayuri's rivalary with Pumpkin continues as Sayuri's popularity triumphs. The complexity of their rivalry causes grief and heartache to Sayuri ... as Pumpkin knows exactly the right time to strike a blow to her former friend's plans. This film provides a historically accurate portrayal of the lives of the Geisha at a time when world political events come crashing down on Japanese society. The changing social and economic structure of the country affects the lives of everyone in ways unimaginable. Fortunately, the conclusion of World War II brings about good fortune for Sayuri and her relationship with the beloved Chairman of her dreams ...Gong Li plays Hatsumomo to perfection, it is excellent casting. The young Chinese girls who play Chiyo and Pumpkin are superb in their roles. Ziyi Zhang plays the adult Chiyo/Sayuri with great depth of feeling and is highly believable as perhaps the most famous Geisha of Kyoto ... Unfortunately, Michelle Yeoh who plays Mameha comes off as too business-like, she does not exude the beauty and charm which are attributed to her character. Occasionally, the story is told in a two-dimensional manner which makes the characters seem less warm and a bit distant. This is why I deducted one star. Never-the-less, overall this film is a tremendously beautiful production worth viewing. The subject matter and cinematography over-ride any other considerations. This film is an intriguing and wonderful entry into the well kept secret of the Geisha lifestyle. Erika Borsos (pepper flower) Could any film capture the beauty and eroticism of the geisha? I wondered before I saw the film. I've spent years studying and writing about the geisha and their tantalizing walk, elegant mannerisms, and striking, ageless beauty. The geisha exudes an air of mystery that both entices and seduces.Fashionista or femme fatale? Who are the geisha really?Gei-sha literally translates to "art person." They are trained musicians, conversationalists, and party hostesses all rolled into one. They are not prostitutes. In fact, the first geisha were men. Yes, men.Around 1730 during Japan's Edo period (1601-1868), only men were allowed to entertain in the pleasure quarters housing the courtesans. Women soon took over the role of geisha, demonstrating their mastery of arts of conversation, song, dance, and musical instruments. The geisha were known strictly as entertainers and were prohibited from engaging in sex with customers. That was the job of the courtesan. Geisha also "dressed down," wearing simple and elegant kimonos so as not to compete with the courtesan. Geisha weren't even allowed to sit near the courtesan's customers. They were true artisans making a living at their craft.I loved the way Rob Marshall portrayed the geisha training in the film. I was swept away by the beauty and lushness I saw portrayed on the screen. As many have criticized, the makeup and costumes may not be authentic and the sets Hollywood-bound, but the story of Sayuri transcends all these factors. The geisha sisterhood is a tradition that crosses over to all cultures and has an effect on each of us. We are all sisters.I believe the film bridges the differences between East and West by telling a dramatic and fascinating story in such a way that every woman can embrace it. Is it a fairy tale? Maybe. But that's what pleases the heart most.And fairy tales last forever. I read the book when it first came out, and wasn't terribly impressed by it. I didn't see the movie at first, because it didn't seem to get the greatest reviews and the book had left me cold. Then I watched it on cable, and was impressed enough to buy it. What impressed me wasn't just that the film is visually stunning, though it is. Nor is the storyline itself so compelling at first glance. Not only was it pretty uninspiring as love stories go, but I wasn't too impressed with the "cinder" part of this cinderella tale -- young Chiyo actually got an amazing break, in that as an unwanted orphan sold into slavery, she got sold in a pretty good place for her sex and the times -- a place where she would get an expensive education, taught to read and write, learn a profession whereby she'd never even "have to pour herself a glass of sake because her maids do all that", etc. In fact, Chiyo's initial whining and running away I thought was pretty uncharacteristic of what a girl in her position would do, given the realities -- the supposedly dumbwitted Pumpkin was far more savvy and realistic. It's amazing to me all the reviewers who seem to miss that this is not a tale of a girl in the U.S. in the 21st century. That being trained as a geisha and given the chance to inherit a valuable geisha house and adopted as a daughter and heir was pretty amazing luck for young Chiyo, if she could have appreciated it -- given she could have landed in far, far worse places from where she came.I spent a lot of the movie wondering about why the narrator seemed to whine so much about Chiyo's unlucky fate - it didn't seem realistic. But what finally impressed me was the ending, where the narrator, who at times seemed to be over the top in her narration of a pretty basic story (mine is a story that should never be told) finally ended on a very realistic note. I disagree that she just finally learned of "kindness, where there had been so much unkindness". The Chairman, Mameha, Auntie, Pumpkin and even "Mother" were kind to her in their own ways. But I like the fact that this film, perhaps one of the first that I can recall, apart from perhaps the "Handmaid's Tale" talked about how a woman sometimes has to make her happiness out of a glass half full. For an American movie, and a supposed "cinderella" romance, that was an amazing leap. This was a Cinderella tale where Cinderella doesn't really get the prince. She's not a fairy tale princess: as she says, she's "not an "empress, nor a queen". Finally and at the end, she makes no apologies for what she is, and for making her happiness out of what she can. As she says, hers are memoirs of another kind. Whatever you think of the life of a geisha, (and some reviewers have perhaps deservedly panned the glorification of prostitution etc.) there is the fact that this was a different culture. Chiyo, who seemed to rail against her fate with almost 21st century female expectations does an abrupt about face at the end. While disconcerting, what I found valuable and in some ways unique is that we don't see too many movies that hold out the illusion of a fairy tale ending and then unapologetically illustrate the half measures that women sometimes have to settle for, and find happiness with. That I found interesting, even intriging. I'm not sure how well it hangs together as a movie or a book. It seems inconsistent to say the least. But I liked that she finally recognized it, and that the author and film didn't try to sell us the pretense of a real fairy tale ending where none existed. She made her happiness where she could. While not acceptable in this day and age, it was for her and I can only applaud that she could find her glass half full and not apologize for it.That said, I wish more time had been spent on the two girls, Chiyo and Pumpkin and their training, and lives. The extras in this DVD go into that a little more and I found that very interesting. I also went back after watching the movie and read the book again, and this was one of those rare times when I thought the movie as good or better than the book, and surprisingly faithful to the book. I ended up purchasing the DVD two disk set, and highly recommend that and the book too. Why there is so much polarity with the audiences of Rob Marshall's cinematic adaptation of Arthur Golden's exquisite novel MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA is puzzling. Even in the theater there were those who left halfway through - reason unknown. Despite disagreements on the casting techniques and on the emphasis changes between the book and the film, MEMOIRS remains one of the most visually arresting, genteel films of the year. That it comes across as somewhat of an epic soap opera is no one's fault but the writers. And what is so wrong with an old-fashioned soap opera of a story afterall?The opening scene of the turbulent sea and heavy rain that accompany the silent selling of two poor sisters to a merchant planning to place the girls in houses in Osaka gives an indication of the importance of water in this story. The sisters are delivered to a house of geishas and only one is selected by the hard madam. Through years of suffering and anguish the chosen one becomes a geisha, finds comfort from her childhood of poverty, gains loving mentoring by a top geisha, becomes the most sought after geisha in Osaka, finds her love, endures WW II and eventually returns to her dreams. The interplay between the girl and the various members of the geisha training and bartering complex add flavor and conflict that keep the story flowing.The three principal actresses - Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh, and Gong Li carry the film well. The large cast includes favorite actors Ken Watanabe and Mako. The settings are splendid, the special effects such as the cherry blossoms, the autumnal reunion of Zhang and Watanabe, Zhang's spellbinding dance - all are brilliant. John Williams' musical score blends the best of Japanese folk music with contemporary writing and is greatly abetted by the talent of Yo-Yo Ma and Itzak Perlman.Part of the brilliance of Golden's novel was the meticulous explanation of the myriad details of geisha training and demeanor and makeup and tradition, and while the film version touches on these, the bulk of them are passed over. For this viewer there is a problem with understanding the dialogue due to the enunciation by the actors and the covering of much of the dialogue with ambient music. But that is a minor complaint. In all, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA is an enormously beautiful and affecting film, one that multiple viewings will no doubt enhance the viewers' appreciation. Recommended. Grady Harp, February 06 I am getting rather tired of reading about how the movie is so terrible when compared to the book. I do agree that the book is absolutely amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment while reading it. I do, however, recognize that this is a movie based on a book and therefore when I saw it I was not expecting that it would be identical to the book. I did enjoy this movie - it is breathtaking to watch visually and essentially the story is pretty faithful to that of the book. What I find makes the biggest difference is that when watching the movie you lose some of the inner dialogue and description of all the events that are present in the book. Also, being that it is a movie some corners had to be cut in order to keep the length of the film closer to 2 hours as is usually the case. Since I have read the book I know the story quite well and am able to enjoy the movie for what it is. In my opinion I think it is a beautiful compliment to the book and I will enjoy watching it again since it is now a part of my DVD collection.
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