The Life of Oharu

Saw The Life of Oharu, a fairly depressing Japanese film from the 50s. It follows Oharu, now a 50-year-old prostitute, as she recalls her entire life up to that point. She began life as the daughter of a samurai in the court and falls precipitously from there to nobleman's courtesan to shopkeeper's wife to servant to prostitute. Her life is punctuated by an almost absurd degree of bad luck and misfortune. Every time she narrowly escapes a bad situation, people from her past come bubbling up, ruining her all over again. The is a sad film and, like most sad films, wants to change your mind about something. In this film that something is class divisions.

There is a theme of bridges, walls, and gates. The first lines in the film are spoken by giggling whore, rebuking a john for coming to this side of the city gates. We first see Oharu warming herself by a fire under a bridge. In her past, when she is first expelled from the palace, she is walking across a bridge. The camera shifts and peers at her from under the bridge, optically placing the bridge above her. This is a foreshadowing of things to come and an illustration of the film's interests. There are those who walk above the bridge, and there is the muck beneath it, but these distinctions are completely arbitrary. We do not know what placed the beggar on the street corner and thus shouldn't judge. Of course we do though because it flatters us and allows us to feel deserving of our own comfort. Similarly to the bridge symbol, many walls in the film stand broken, and all gates are open.

In Oharu's case her sexual history in particular is used to discredit her. Pre-emptive jealousy of women and the lust of men are her frequent undoing. At one point, a rich farmer takes an interest in her because she alone is not grovelling for his money. He asks her to marry him and, after reasoning that this might be the best she can do, he gloatingly crows that even she has her price. This is the film at its most frank. We are all corruptible. We are all looking for comfort and respect. We are all trying to stay alive. This levelling of the human race echoes the teachings of many religions and indeed the film ends with a soulful song about Buddha, but the film doesn't let organized religion off either. At one point near the end, Oharu is exhibited to a bunch of young monks to show them the folly of earthly desires, to scare them into a life of celibacy. By this point her dignity is so eroded that she is at least relieved that she didn't have to sleep with anyone. A sad, ponderous film about man's inhumanity to man.