Memoirs Of A Geisha Movie » Brats & Beer

January 14, 2006
posted under: Memoirs of a Geisha, movie review

Due to the contractual commitments of being a husband, I was made to sit through Memoirs of a Geisha last night. Oi vey! Or maybe I should say nante koto da! I wasn’t really expecting to like this movie much to begin with, I mean it’s the story of a geisha girl trying to find love and happiness, but it was awful. Dreadful. Painfully slow. I’m not the sort of person who needs explosions and car crashes every three seconds or anything, but this flick made Dune look like a light romp.

At the very least I was expecting the film to look beautiful, but director Rob Marshall (Chicago) made the artistic choice here to mute all color out of the film. Practically every frame was dark and gray. As for the cinematography, Geisha answers the question of how many consecutive scenes can open with a dolly shot following someone through a door.

Of course, the worst thing about this film is that it stars two Chinese actresses in the lead roles. Not only is it insulting to the Japanese but to Americans as well. Is Hollywood that convinced that the masses are that dumb. Maybe we are, but you don’t have to rub our noses in it like that. It does feature the very fine Ken Watanabe, but his performance here is so stilted and subdued that it took a long time before I even recognized him. In fact, this film almost made me wish I was watching The Last Samurai; at least it has good looking scenery to distract you while it denigrates Japanese culture and history.

But don’t just take my word for it: Mrs. BratsNBeerGuy, who read both Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha and Mineko Iwasaki’s autobiography Geisha, A Life before seeing this movie, was sorely disappointed. She recommends skipping the movie and just reading the books. Personally, I’ll stick to Kurosawa films.