Japanese Beauty through American Eyes
‘Sayuri’, the film adaption of Arthur Golden’s ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ is released in Japan on December 10th. We asked our local film expert Joe Sieder to give us the lowdown.
From Bestseller to Blockbuster
You don’t need a film buff like me to tell you that Sayuri, based on Arthur Golden’s 1997 best-seller ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, will be a Movie Event. The trailer is certainly serious eye-candy and practically screams ‘Gimme an Oscar!’ Selling 4 million copies and translated into 32 languages, Golden’s novel swept Japan’s most mysterious, iconic and misunderstood profession out of Gion’s teahouses and onto the global marketplace. And soon the much-anticipated film adaptation hits screens around the world, following its world premiere in Japan this month. Beginning in 1929 and set in a fictional hanamachi (geisha district), the film tells the story of young Sayuri, sold to a geisha house by her penniless parents, who rises from servant girl to sophisticated geisha.
A Constellation of International Stars
Sayuri is a truly cosmopolitan confection. From an American novel about a Japanese woman, shot in the USA and Japan, the film is directed by Rob Marshall (whose previous Chicago won six Oscars) and jointly produced by Steven Spielberg. The much-coveted title role has been snagged by Beijing-beauty Ziyi Zhang, star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, who trades swords for a folding fan this time around. Zhang’s 2046 co-star, the peerless Chinese actress Gong Li, plays Hatsumomo, Sayuri’s nemesis, while Malaysian-born Michelle Yeoh (Zhang’s CTHD co-star) is Sayuri’s mentor Mameha. Before you cry ‘Whither Japan?’, admirable support is provided by a string of top Japanese performers (most with high western profiles, natch) including Ken ‘Last Samurai’ Watanabe, Yuki Kudoh and the ubiquitous Koji Yakusho.
Lovers of the hyper-real Huis Ten Bosch will laud the film crew’s efforts in recreating an entire hanamachi on a horse ranch outside LA. Sets were made from Japan-imported black bamboo and cedar bark, two acres of sailcloth (the largest free-standing structure ever built over a set) helped recreate the flat winter light of Kyoto, and four hand-made cherry-trees were sculpted to accommodate Japan’s pesky four seasons, notable in their LA absence. Well-traveled Japanophiles should also enjoy train-spotting the various authentic locations, including Kyoto’s Kiyomizu Temple and Fushimi Inari Shrine, whose famed miles of orange torii offer a suitably spectacular backdrop to the drama.
A Beautiful Work of Fiction
Like many Hollywood dramas, Sayuri promises to combine painstaking attention to period detail with considerable artistic license. This is known in the trade as ‘making a movie’. Thus, those likely to tsk loudly at the inauthentic sleeve length of Gong Li’s kimonos will be just as disappointed as those hoping to see a Hollywood geisha playing ‘Voodoo Chile’ on the shamisen. Like the director’s previous Chicago, Sayuri will undoubtedly be a most beautiful fiction. Whether one considers it Orientalist or simply Oscar-worthy will, like most objects of beauty, depend largely upon the eye of the beholder. Either way, if you welcome a genuine blockbuster without the prospect of either Bruce Willis or Earth’s imminent destruction, I’d say Sayuri should be well worth the price of admission.
Joe Sieder
Joe is from London andhas worked in TV production and as a researcher for the BritishFilm Institute. He is currently researching Japanese documentary film at Kyushu University.
