Patterns of Time

Although Kenji Mizoguchi is one of the three most important Japanese directors (along with Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa), there has been no systematic critical study of his work in English. Correcting this omission. Donald Kirihara examines in detail the brilliant early works of one of the world's great film directors, offering an analysis of his career. The book targets a key phase of Mizoguchi's career, the 1930s. It was in that period that conditions within the Japanese film industry allowed Mizoguchi more freedom to experiment with film style and narrative structure. Kirihara analyzes the formal and stylistic components of four of Mizoguchi's films. "The Downfall of Osen" (1935), "Naniwa Elegy" (1936), "Sisters of the Gion" (1936) and "The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum" (1939), while considering the historical context in which they were produced and consumed. Using scores of frame enlargements, drawing from a variety of historical sources, and integrating concepts from contemporary film theory, Kirihara proposes a new way of understanding Mizoguchi's films.
He argues that at the heart of Mizoguchi's brilliance as a filmmaker is an obsessive need to challenge spectators, implicating them in the production of meaning through the dynamic manipulation of spatio-temporal relations. The result is a film style that self-consciously leads, frustrates and surprises.