Geisha is an artist of the floating World.

''She paints her face to hide her face. Her eyes are deep water. It is not for Geisha to want. It is not for geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings. She entertains you, whatever you want. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret.''

Nitta Sayuri reveals how she transcended her fishing-village roots and became one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.

Ziyi Zhang: Sayuri

Ken Watanabe: Chairman

Memoirs of a Geisha(2005) is the captivating story of a girl becoming a woman, whom in turn becomes the most celebrated Geisha of Japan.
A film adaptation of Arthur Golden's book which is also a favourite book of mine, the screenplay for the film was done by Robin Swicord.
The lavishness and colour come alive in Memoirs in a rich and intricate way, enhanced by Dion Beebe's cinematography. The landscapes and settings are so detailed and breathtaking, as well as the beautiful kimono's worn by all the Geishas and the costumes worn by every characters which reflect the period.
The score has such a haunting and mysterious ambiance, adding to that layer of enigma, which a great Geisha essentially captures.



Otherwise fairly faithful to the book, the plot follows the life of Chiyo, at first a nine-year old Japanese girl whom is sold by her desperate father into slavery along with her older sister Satsu. Because of the unusual gray color of her eyes, Chiyo is sold to an okiya in Kyoto, i.e., a boardinghouse for Geishas, while her sister is sold into prostitution elsewhere. Chiyo uses any means she can to reunite with her sister, but she is constantly defeated and punished by the okiya mother until Mameha, a legendary geisha of the hanamachi (Geisha district) takes an interest in developing Chiyo into a Geisha. Chiyo undergoes a grueling but relatively speedy apprenticeship, and men become bewitched by her poise and subservient manner.
Taking a new name, Sayuri, to symbolize her metamorphosis into a professional geisha, she also gains a vindictive adversary in the beautiful yet spiteful Hatsumomo played magnificently by Gong Li, the okiya's star geisha. In fact, Sayuri later surpasses Hatsumomo in stature, but her victory is short-lived as Japan is in the midst of war and the entire hanamachi is evacuated. Fortunes are lost, but the post-WWII American occupation brings new and not entirely welcome opportunities. This is where both the book and movie involve plot machinations evolving into more of a generic soap opera of compromise and moral ambiguity. Fortunately, Marshall - along with co-screenwriters Robin Swicord and Doug Wright – do not include the book's long denouement of Sayuri moving to New York to run a salon for visiting Japanese businessmen.

The film is dominated by the three female leads, none Japanese, but their individual talents and combined star wattage dismiss any major miscasting grievances. Ziyi Zhang certainly looks the part of Sayuri, pure and innocent yet cunning and seductive; She plays the central role with requisite piety. With her shopworn beauty and throaty voice, Michelle Yeoh fully captures the meditative wisdom of Mameha, as she seems completely credible as the hanamachi's leading geisha. A stunning beauty that threatens to cause an imbalance to the story, Gong Li though is a knockout as Hatsumomo, the main nemesis Sayuri with a gift for conveying jealousy and hate while equaling a performance you love to seethe at anger at.

Because of the decision to have the dialogue almost completely in English (instead of subtitled), Yeoh comes off the smoothest, while both Zhang and Li seem at times to be speaking rather robotized. Ken Watanabe makes a charismatic Chairman; The object of Sayuri's lifelong desires. Other roles are presented in rather broad strokes - Kôji Yakusho is suitably gruff and insensitive as Nobu; Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa brings a nicely sinister edge to the Baron; Youki Kudoh undergoes the most dramatic transformation as the secondary apprentice geisha, Pumpkin; and Kaori Momoi is coldly effective as the mercenary okiya mother with the forever-propped cigarette.

Rob Marshall and company have brought Arthur Golden's book Memoirs of a Geisha to life with dedicated spirit. Having won 3 Oscars this is truly a Hollywood drenched adaptation which sometimes sacrifices substance for visual style and art. The love story and beauty always make me fall into adoration though for a heart warming, heart felt tale and insight into the enigmatic world of a Geisha.

''We do not become Geisha to pursue our own destines. We become Geisha because we have no other choice.''


10/10