SOURCE : "Mizoguchi: Woman as Slave," in The Waves at Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema, Pantheon Books, 1976, pp. 252-69.

In the following essay, Mellen discusses Mizoguchi's portrayal of women within the confines of traditional Japanese society, arguing that in his best films women rebel—although their efforts are futile—against the system of oppression, usually dying for their cause.

Those directors protesting against the oppression of the Japanese woman believe that even the failed rebellion is worth the effort. The finest films of Mizoguchi, who of the older directors best understood how the Japanese patriarchy demeans women, are those in which his women fight the hardest against their fate. The men in Mizoguchi's films are always weaker than the women, not because he was unable to characterize men, but because their childishness is meant to be an analogue to moral emptiness. The assertions of women in a patriarchy...