Film: Memoirs of a Geisha

First let me say that this is not the sort of film I would normally pay to go and see at the cinema, however a free ticket to a preview screening last night, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph, meant I didn't have to. I expected it to be the usual epic tale of love and loss, as most Hollywood movies based on best-selling novels usually are, and it didn't disappoint on that score. It was long (2 and a half hours, actually 2 hours and 20 minutes if you don't sit through the credits). There was loss (a young girl is separated from her parents and sister) and there was love. The love was my main problem with the premise of the movie. I do not see how a 9 year old girl can fall in love with a 40-odd year old man, who curiously does not age as she does throughout the film. Was it just because he was kind to her? I don't know. I didn't relate and that was a major problem for me along with the misogynistic idea of geishas. There is something seriously wrong when young girls are trained in the arts from a young age with the end result being that their virginity is sold to the highest bidder, to pay off their training debts when they make their debut as a geisha. Then what? The film didn't really go any further in explaining exactly what is the point of being a geisha. Some of the plot details were glossed over, and are no doubt fully explained in the book. Her so-called friend 'Pumpkin' (my ex-gf saw it dubbed in Italian and asked me if that was her name because it was funny, I couldn't agree more) bringing her true love to see her in flagrante with an American soldier was out of the blue and poorly explained. Almost as if it had to be included but not explained properly. Why did she sleep with the soldier anyway?

At the beginning the fishermen were speaking Japanese and there were no subtitles, then for the rest of the movie everyone spoke in English. Make up your mind, either do one or the other, there's no point switching between because it simply draws attention to the fact that we're in Japan and people are speaking English. In short I didn't enjoy the film. The performances and cinematography were good but that's about it.

The evening wasn't a total waste of time though, at least I've seen one of the possible Oscar contenders for this year (with another to follow tomorrow, Brokeback Mountain). Well I assume so, as it's been nominated for 2 Golden Globes. But even better was the fact that I got to see the trailer for Imagine Me and You on the big screen for the first time. Previously I'd only seen the US trailer online, which is slightly different.