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Memoirs of a Geisha

Directed by Rob Marshall
Written by Robin Swicord and Doug Wright, based on the novel by Arthur Golden
Rated PG-13
Starring Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li, and Ken Watanabe

Note: Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li are both Chinese actresses, where your family name comes first and your given name comes second. In America, Zhang Ziyi is most commonly referred to as Ziyi Zhang, but Gong Li for some reason never got the switch and is usually still known here as Gong Li. So that's what they'll be referred to in the review.

I'll admit it: I was going into Memoirs of a Geisha not expecting to like it. First of all, it's a story about Japanese women played by Chinese women speaking in English with Japanese accents. That just seemed like a bad move. But more importantly, it just plain didn't seem interesting. It reminded me of a similar movie, Farewell My Concubine, about the lives of two Chinese actors, which I found more tedious than entertaining. So in my admittedly close-minded brain, the story of two rival geishas in Japan didn't seem like it was going to be worth watching.

But, of course, I watched, and I'm glad I did. The movie, while not without many flaws, eventually won me over. It got progressively better as it went along, which I suppose is much better than the other way around.

The first full forty-five minutes of the movie are by far the most tedious. A young girl, Chiyo, from a fishing village, I think, is sold into a geisha house. There she has to work as an unpaid servant (slave?) with hopes that one day she can be a geisha herself. She is consistently tortured by the reigning geisha of the house, Hatsumomo, played by Gong Li. It's just plain really boring. The only things that got me through it was the beautiful cinematography and set design (more on that later), and the convincing performance of Suzuka Ohgo, playing the young Chiyo.

Just about exactly forty-five minutes -- I clocked it -- and finally we're thrust into the real story, where Chiyo has grown up into a teenager from now on played by Ziyi Zhang. She becomes a geisha known as Sayuri and is taken under the wing of a new mentor named Mameha, played by Michelle Yeoh. This turns Sayuri and Hatsumomo into bitter rivals. Gong Li plays Hatsumomo with such vengeful spite that she's fun to watch, almost fun enough to miss the fact that she's a complete one-dimensional caricature. I still can't decide whether to complain about Gong Li's performance or applaud it. Actually, here goes: she has great fun playing a character that the writers have refused to turn into anything but a caricature. That sounds good.

Thoughtful interlude: what exactly is a geisha, you ask? Well, it's almost impossible to describe. In my opinion, essentially it's a high-class prostitute. The movie goes to great pains to tell us that geishas are NOT prostitutes, but, well…yes, they are, sorry. They are "objects of desire", the movie tells us, a "human work of art" that is the "physical embodiment of beauty", or something. I wasn't quite buying the whole "not a common prostitute" angle. In fact, much of the plot in the middle section of the movie involves a bidding war over Sayuri's virginity. Money for sex…that sort of sounds like a prostitute.

Anyway, despite the whole prostitute angle, Sayuri is still a charming, idealistic young woman, because when she was younger, still Chiyo, she met a man called only the Chairman (Ken Watanabe from the Last Samurai) who was kind to her. And since that day she swore to herself to love only him. As Sayuri, she meets him again, but the Chairman's business partner wants Sayuri for himself, and the Chairman is too much of a gentleman to compete. Drama, drama.

Actually, that whole angle of the movie is quite well-done compared to the beginning, partly because of Watanabe's performance. Like in the Last Samurai, he brings an immediate weight and plausibility to his already likable character; it's almost like he's like a Japanese Morgan Freeman, in that sense. It also makes the romantic idea between Sayuri, who looks like she's about sixteen, and the Chairman, over forty, a little creepy. But you just have to get over that, I guess.

The final section of the movie deals with World War II -- Japan goes into chaos and Sayuri has to go work in the mountains for four years or so. All thoughts of her life as a geisha leave, but then the Chairman's business partner comes back, saying that they need to make a deal with an American colonel (Ted Levine) to get their business back on track, and if she became a geisha once more her presence could help seal the deal. So she goes back, meets the Chairman again, and becomes a geisha once more. At first I thought she was being sold to the colonel, but then later when it becomes clear that he isn't, I was left with no idea why they even needed her. To wrap up the story, I guess. Oh well.

By the end, we've grown to know these characters enough that we care about them, many thanks due to the performances of Zhang and Watanabe. Plus, the events of the last third of the movie are just plain the most interesting of the whole movie, and therefore we're left with a good impression of the movie as a whole.

Rob Marshall directed this, an odd choice, because not only is he American, his sole movie credit before this was directing Chicago. Here he proves that he is not just a musical guy, but a solid director capable of strong imagery. His team does wonderful work with the costumes, art direction, makeup, score, and cinematography. It's a beautiful looking film, and the mood is well set, also thanks to the narration by Sayuri, which is thankfully used sparingly and for poetic rather than plot-driven reasons.

A lot of reviews have called it on being too much of a soap opera. Well, that's the kind of movie it is; I didn't mind that so much. It is a lavish, expensive, period-spanning drama. I couldn't help but think occasionally that it was all a mask to hide the truth of geishas; my guess is, had the movie been more realistic, it wouldn't have been so upbeat about the profession. But still. I'll use my 100% accurate mathematical calculator for whether it was a good movie or not: bad beginning, pretty good middle, very good ending. Tip the scales since it was such a great looking film, and for the excellent lead performances, and you get an above average movie.

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