Memoirs of A Geisha

Memoirs of A Geisha is a film directed by American director Rob Marshall in 2005. Set in Japan during World War II, the film tells the lifetime story of Chiyo Matsumoto, a young Japanese girl from an impoverished family who is sold to an okiya (geisha house) by her father. Heartbroken and lost, Chiyo meets Chairman Iwamura, her love for the lifetime, and decides to become a geisha so that she can be part of the Chairman’s life. However, becoming a geisha is not as easy as Chiyo has imagined. As a new geisha, Chiyo doesn’t have too much choice over her customers. She is forced to entertain Chairman’s friend, even though the only person who she admires is the Chairman. As Chiyo becomes the most well-known geisha in Gion, Japan’s defeat in the war eventually caused the downfall of entertainment activities. Chiyo is forced to leave Kyoto after her transient success as a geisha. But luckily, after the war, Chiyo meets the Chairman again while she helps him to relaunch his business after the war. In the final, Chiyo and the Chairman finally confess love to each other.

As a memoir, the film is narrated in Chiyo’s perspective and it’s easy for us to understand Chiyo’s thoughts at different time. After Chiyo falls in love with the Chairman, there is a scene where she runs down the Senbon Torii gates, smiling and anticipating. This is one of the most famous, and also my favorite melodramatic moment in the film. In this scene, Chiyo’s emotion is excessive. Her happiness, her hope, and her dream to become part of the Chairman’s life. The audience definitely read and feel Chiyo’s emotion, even without the narrative.

Another Melodramatic scene in the movie is where Chiyo’s rival, Hatsumomo, finds out her love for the Chairman and the two physically fight each other at the Okiya. There are a lot of emotional outburst, as the audience can feel the tension between these two women increase as we see Chiyo’s uneasiness. Hatsumomo used to be the most famous geisha at the okiya, but Chiyo’s success immediately takes all men’s attention from her. But Hatsumomo is not one of those subordinate geishas who do not fight against fate. She loves, she hates, and she acts purely based on her desire. Hatsumomo is the exact opposite of Chiyo’s teacher, Mameha, who is always calm and knows what’s best for herself. Throughout the film, Chiyo is basically choosing between Hatsumomo and mameha: either be dispassionate like Mameha or emotional like Mameha. In her Chiyo’s fight with Hatsumomo, we definitely see Chiyo is more like the latter. The motif behind all her actions is her love for the Chairman. When atsumomo is chased out of the okiya, Chiyo says, “ I could be her. Now I am geisha to this house. Were we so different? She loved once, she hoped once,  I might be looking into my own future.” At the end of that scene, the okiya is set on fire. Everything in the okiya is burnt into ashes, implying the end of Chiyo’s career as a geisha.

The second part of the movie, which is set in postwar Japan, mainly focus on the theme of chaos and the loss of tradition. The postwar Japan is experiencing huge culture change and foreigners mistakenly take geisha as prostitutes. Chiyo’s old friend, Pumpkin, who used to be a geisha at the okiya house, becomes one of those who sells her body to make a living.  However, Chiyo does not give in to this change. In her mind, geisha is an elegant work of art that allows her to reach the world that she otherwise could never reach; it is the only connection that she has with the Chairman. “But I was a far from the geisha I had once been. The secrets of our hidden world were postcards now for girls back home. Any streetwalker with a painted face and silk kimono could call herself a geisha.” The contradiction between Chiyo and Pumpkin is the vivid representation of the conflict of tradition and modernization in postwar Japan society. Chiyo is desperate, because now being a geisha means giving her body to another man. Up until here, the tragic elements are very obvious in the film. It seems natural for us to expect a sad ending that is common to most Japanese postwar melodramas. However, the film ends with Chiyo’s reunion with the Chairman, a happy ending that  is more common in Hollywood melodramas. After all, Memoirs of A Geisha is made by an American director. Although the style and the ending is quite different from a typical Japanese melodrama, it still in some degrees addresses the topic that is very common in Japanese melodrama.