The Pensieve

Rating: 3 out of 5

The movie is only but a ghost of the stunning, intricately woven novel by Arthur Golden. First it attempted to portray the entire life of a woman within 2hours plus, then it attempted to capture the fates of THREE different women. I doubt any movie would be able to do something as phenomenal as that… (Even if ‘The Hours’ managed to capture three women, it was but a day in the life of each one of them…) Nevertheless, the scenery, the costumes were superb! The scenes have an ethereal quality about them… giving us the feeling that this film did not only portray the bittersweet story of a young girl trained to be a geisha, but all these women with the same fates.

I suppose most women who had been geishas would find this film a tribute to them.

Another unfortunate aspect of the film was that it ruined what it tried so hard to build up… the majesty, dignity and pride of these special women trained in the fine arts, was simply degraded by this scenario… 3 bitchy geishas!

It made me wonder, maybe the film would be more appropriately called: Memoirs of a bitchy geisha. heh heh heh.

This is the scene I loved most in the movie… :) the dance did by Sayuri… quite interesting… it shows a woman (on damn super ugly blocks of wood, which I suppose was considered beautiful to them) with an umbrella striving to move forwards in a blizzard, finally losing her umbrella, getting buffeted by the strong winds and falling to the ground… dead? or not. Anyway, it feels like a portrayal of the life of sooo many women in society of the past… all trying their best to live, and to progress, but constantly repelled by the winds of tradition, and then ultimately, facing defeat. :(

Just wondering, did zhang ziyi really do that dance? Or was it her stand-in? Hia hia hia…

This was the most FAKE scene of ziyi’s… actually, she’s probably the worst female actor in the movie! her dead eyes, though blue-grey, actually look quite freaky against her pale face… Her attempts to look dignified made her look very leaden. And worse, her attempt to look child-like… by smiling, prancing and flirtaciously twirling a string of cheery blossom under the tree while she was with the Chairman (Ken Watanabe… charming man ah!) made me feel like -> -_- + goosebumps on my skin… and whenever they flashed back to the little girl by the bridge who got the iced cone from the Chairman… i thought - paedophile… Ewwww…

I’ve got to commend little Chiyo for a rather good performance! Round of applause for Suzuka Ohgo!!!

Michelle Yeoh was ok I suppose… But Gong Li was la crème de la crème with her superb acting, eyes that contained deep pools of emotion… It was just weird who asked her to act like she was constantly drunk? Or on drugs? Or worse, to look like a common prostitute. I sure hope that wasn’t her interpretation of the character! In the book, I remember Hatsumomo as being especially spiteful and jealous, but then… all women can be like that from time to time… So i don’t see why her character was made to be so one-dimensioned in this film! After reading the book, I remembered feeling not only pity but a sense of understanding at her predicament, but after watching this movie, I’m only filled with a sense of disgust at her actions. In fact, she was almost an unreal, almost too-perfect baddie.

This is the Hatsumomo that I’ve come to imagine from my readings…

This was the common prostitute, destitute woman the film portrayed her to be.

Another aspect of contention, more of my frd’s contention than mine was that the ending wasn’t too good. I recalled feeling extremely happy and relieved when the two lovers were finally reunited years later according to the book. But in this film, perhaps it would have been better to end it at the scene which shows Sayuri’s back as she walks alone down one of those covered bridge walkways… A bittersweet ending is probably more appropriate for this movie, giving the viewer a 荡气回肠 kind of feeling…

All in all, it was a good movie, and it’s worth it to watch!