Yojohan Fusuma no urabari

The World of Geisha (1973) is a film by Tatsumi Kumashiro (1927-1995), a Japanese writer/director who is beginning to get some exposure with Western audiences as an underrated filmmaker who imbued his erotica with both creative aesthetics and a rare form of respect for his female protagonists, especially given how women were otherwise treated on film in other Nikkatsu studio Romantic Pornographies of the time. When the Facets Cinematheque in Chicago did a small retrospective of his work with prints from the Japan Foundation (and with permission from Nikkatsu), titled "Eros and Revolution: Four Films by Tatsumi Kumashiro," they trumpeted Kumashiro in the program notes as "the most important director to emerge during the 1970's. The films themselves, with their defiant images of oppressed geishas and sexually rebellious women, were considered courageous attacks on the archaic Japanese national censorship board, a holdover from the postwar American occupation. Kumashiro's films both popularized this new genre and elevated it into the realm of art cinema." The historical backdrop for The World of Geisha takes us to Hong Kong in the early 1900's, with references to the rice riots, Korean uprising, and the Sino-Russo War. Fans of erotica need not worry that they will be subjected to a long and unwanted history lesson, however, as the bulk of the action revolves around a geisha who fails to observe one of the cardinal rules of her training by losing herself, emotionally and sexually, to a customer who is looking for one last roll in the hay before he marries. While suggestive romps abound, along with titillating geisha training exercises that involve eggs and spare change, that which most excites (and this will sound odd) comes to play in the editing. As Kumashiro cuts between what goes on behind the closed doors of the geisha quarters, historical intertitles, and scenes of sexually obsessed soldiers in training, the viewer can get a sense of a playful talent behind the lens. Context, however, is king; anyone walking in with high expectations for either the art-house revelation or a squishy and exotic flesh-fest will probably be left out in the cold. Where The World of Geisha reigns is in comparison to other Nikkatsu Roman Porno brethren that don't even bother, as Kumashiro does, to carefully examine different relationships as they all relate to each other in a hierarchy of money and power. In a way it's fitting how history, war, geishas and Kumashiro come together. World War II provided a major shift in the geisha world by instituting new laws governing prostitution that eliminated the practice of women being sold by their families to work as geishas. The same war would also pave the way for a national censorship board that would have a powerful say in the world of Japanese cinema. It's fitting that Kumashiro would use the realm of the geisha as a cultural springboard to attack the "holdover from the postwar American occupation" censorship board. The World of Geisha dvd release by the KimStim Collection is released unrated in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and doesn't contain any extras. The liner notes by Ian Stimler are the same as those used for Kumashiro's The Woman with Red Hair (1979) dvd. For more information about The World of Geisha, visit Image Entertainment. To order The World of Geisha, go to TCM Shopping. by Pablo Kjolseth