Hello I found a 1954 movie titled: ( 噂の女, Uwasa no Onna)
The basic plot of the movie is that: "A widow named Hatsuko runs a Tayū house (though some movie sites said in their plot summaries, that it was a "geisha house") in Kyoto.
She is having a discreet affair with young doctor Matoba, who works for the courtesan guild and looks after her.
One day, her daughter Yukiko returns from Tokyo following a suicide attempt. Yukiko immediately despises Matoba, while he begins to harbor feelings for the young woman.
Matoba wants to open his own medical practice and is considering a move to Tokyo. Hatsuko does not want him to leave her and implores him to stay.
Meanwhile Yukiko deals with the shame of her mother's profession, as it was because of her boyfriend's family discovery of Hatsuko's background that he left her and Yukiko attempted suicide. "
I do lack knowledge so I would like to ask,
First I would like to know first if Tayū were indeed still working during the 1950s? As well as how accurate are they in the way they depict the Tayū and their work (Even if we have to take into account that this is a movie and some liberties would have been taken)
I would also love to hear your own observation of things that people may have missed if they do not have as much knowledge about Tayū
hi @d-m-a-c
Thank you so much for your question. I watched the movie and took some screenshots to the scenes i found relevant. Hope you enjoy my input as i have mashed it together in a stream of consciousness "review" of sorts. Some scenes jumped out at me for accuracy, poignancy and sometimes i was left questioning what we know about Tayuu. One very interesting aspect is the time in which the movie is set: After the horrors of the war and while Japan was rebuilding in lightning speed, we are far removed from any global happenings, nestled in the intimate world of the Karyukai. Most scenes are set inside, like in a play. Oftentimes though the scenes go deep, the eyes wander inside as people hustle and bustle in the background. It makes for an unsettling atmosphere, where there's always someone listening. I loved the nods to the Wachigaiya and the Sumiya, which makes us believe we are in Kyoto.
And the Okiya does look quite authentic for Kyoto, having beautiful looking, though small rooms, quite the variety of locations for the inhabitants and guests, so i'm guessing it serves as Ochaya as well. We get to see the rooms where guests are welcomed as well as the "backoffice" where food and drinks are prepared for service and at some point we see that some of the staff sleep next to the hearth. While the Yarite takes a short break to eat, she rests her Katsura on a stand nearby and quickly snatches it as soon as she hears guests approaching. I loved that little insight as it would have been no loss to the plot to have shown a properly dressed Yarite welcoming the clients instead of an employee caught off guard during her break.
The Tayuu look pretty authentic too: There's one scene where two Tayuu and a Kamuro leave the okiya together, one dressed in full regalia, one more casually dressed but she's clearly not a Furisode neither a Kamuro, rather what we would consider a Shinzo in an Oiran parade. They leave together to a booking, walking in a mini version of the Dochu and i was wondering, who would fulfill what role exactly when at the party. I couldn't shake the thought that maybe i missed something important about hierarchical dynamics or the movie got it wrong for the sake of optics. We only ever see one Kamuro, she's clearly a teenager. Other girls in western dress fulfill some apprentice's tasks but there is a more "fluid" feel to the hierarchy. Surely during the Showa era there must have been some weird overlap between modern and traditional aesthetics in places like the Okiya as the Karyukai was learning to adapt. The movie takes place in this delicate era between the war and the prohibition ban and we can pick up on some anachronisms for modern Tayuu.
We witness this as even the flamboyant Tayuu remark how "modern" the Okasan's daughter is compared to them. Yukiko always looks like the quintessential 50ies idol in her petticoated dress and turtlenecks, all very Audrey Hepburn, while the working girls sport a quite authentic looking variety of Nihongami. I wonder how some girls forced to dress like 1800s Courtesans might feel standing next to a 1950ies teeny bopper. It's a weird thought but i remember my own teenage years and how i longed to be cool and accepted by my peers. These girls live inside this bubble, trapped in bygone centuries. Looking at the movie i thought it was cool how all Tayuu sported different hairstyles and looked very individual from one another.
I found it insanely refreshing that there was no rivalry to be felt between the Tayuu. We see them as passengers in the same boat, either ignoring each other or actually interacting in a realistic and, dare i say, even caring way. Multiple times during the movie we hear how the Okiya is exceptional in taking care of their Tayuu and that in comparison these girls would be much worse off. Yukiko gets a subplot where she takes care of a sick Usugumo Tayuu. The whole plot around Usugumo serves as interesting insight into Oiran lifestyle:
Pictured above: Usugumo returns from her outing, somewhat unexpectedly early and in intense pain, she collapses in the entrance. Just a few instances earlier, the Okamisan of the Ochaya where Usugumo was entertaining earlier in the evening, calls in and complains that Usugumo had left early and had given some odd excuses. Nobody, NOBODY, was listening to Usugumo until she arrives at her place where she felt safe enough to break down in pain. Turns out Usugumo HAS CANCER AND THEN DIES IN THE MOVIE! This sucks. But it checks out. These girls were drilled to make money and there was no pretense about it. Usugumo has a whole storyline about how she sends the money she makes to her father and little sister. While we never get to see her father, Usugumo's sister has her own little scenes where she pleads the Okasan's daughter to become a Courtesan herself so she can support her father in Usugumo's stead. In this scene we see the dichotomy between Usugumo's little sister pleading to enter the Okiya to fulfill her duty as a woman juxtaposed to the only Kamuro-like girl in the movie, i thought it interesting. In reality there would never have been a Kamuro this old, usually they would have been "broken in" way earlier. The movie makes us think about the fate of two girls transitioning into the sex trade: While the Kamuro's path is already laid out while she passively waits for her deflowering, Usugumo's sister anticipates the pass over the threshold so she can be of service to her family. All of them will be fed into the machine.
Some weird thoughts that popped into my head while i watched were Usugumo's matted hair when she lifts her head from her cushion. One could see the remnants of her Nihongami in there, as she deteriorates slowly into sickness. And... The 1950ies must have been intensely smoky, i can't imagine how all the kimono and tatami and everything else must have smelled of cigarette.. But you know what they say:
“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” L. P. Hartley.
Yet i can't help remember how in "Memoirs of a Geisha", even though based on Mineko's life, clearly a work of fiction and to be treated as such, there was a whole lot of talk about fire in the Okiya and such and how people in the Karyukai tend to make a point of how dangerous it is to bring fire into these wooden structures full of paper, cloth and wood. Yet here we see Tayuu, patrons and everyone in between smoking it up. I don't really know what to make of it but i found it kinda weird.
Seen above is the communal area where the Tayuu make up, prepare for the day and also where the very ill Usugumo rests, as she awaits her diagnosis. Iwanted to discuss the caption in the picture: "We are merely daughters of poor peasant families":
We can't ignore that this must be a very realistic statement around working girls in the Karyukai but it does contradict what is known about the refined character of Tayuu, born and bread for exclusive consumption. Well, there were no more rich samurai houses to drain daughters from, so by the time when the movie is set, Tayuu were indeed made up what whomever was walked in the door. You asked if there were any working working Tayuu in the 1950ies and there certainly were. Even after the Prostitution ban of 1958, Tayuu simply changed their job description and kept on keeping on. It's just a question of semantics.
In this sense the movie touches upon a very interesting delicate spot as Tayuu were transitioning from a contemporary albeit stuffy Courtesan tradition to become artisans of fine traditional art. It reflects my own position that by the time around the war, even though there were Tayuu houses and Tayuu, they were a far cry from what we celebrated as "The learned Courtesans" of yore.
Expressed in the original conflict between how Yukiko was rejected for her family's trade in the pleasure quarters all the while boasting refinement as a talented Piano player, good enough to pursue it professionally in Tokyo, equally having inherited a knack for entrepreneurship as a passionate Okasan when she steps in for her mother when she get's sick. All of which facilitated by the exploitations of working girls in her mothers house. Yukiko could have it all: The life of an enlightened modern Gyaru as well as a caring mother figure to desperate working girls in a high end brothel.
And yes. It's a brothel.
A rather interesting scene establishes how these Tayuu, in full regalia nonetheless, can easily switch from ozashiki to sexy time: The Yarite instigates the choosie game between three clients and three Tayuu during an Ozashiki. As the patrons pick their companions at random, the party dissolves as the couples cavort away to their futons presumably. Or where else would the rush to giggling?
Another hint is when we see Hatsuko and her doctor visit the Kamogawa Odori.
The good doctor Matoba is so enthralled by the Geiko onstage, he leers in such a way that even Hatsuko catches on and wipes his hands off the pamphlet, when he tries to find his desired Geiko in the pages. In the movie Hatsuko is framed as a somewhat jealous woman, insecure about her age, even though she looks far from the movie's own stereotype of an old woman.
Though the point i want to make is how the Okasan of the presumably last Tayuu house in Kyoto, will go see the Geiko of Pontocho perform, and later a Noh play, but we never actually see her own Tayuu perform in any artform. We only ever see them with men or in preparation to meet men. The movie wants us to see exactly that. These Tayuu are in the sex trade as opposed to the Geiko, who get to shine onstage. One scene shows a group of patrons enter the okiya with a swaying Maiko and Geiko in their arms, exhilarated by the evenings delights. Presumably the idea is that the Maiko will supply the entertainment in the Ochaya part of the house and then leave the end of the business transaction up to the Tayuu. So the movie clearly distinguishes that some women are for entertainment and some are for pleasure. In the Okiya's foyer, just over the Okasan's bureau hangs a clock. We are meant to keep track of time when Tayuu enter and leave. At one point a certain Mr. Sumiya (hinthint) calls in to book a Tayuu on the spot for 8 o'clock and my brain started rattling: Why such a late call in? How is this possible if Tayuu are meant to be booked far in advance, how could a patron simply walz into an Ochaya and request a Tayuu for the very evening? And i kept track of the clock: Tayuu usually left at 8pm. And Usugumo returned and then collapsed on the steps at around 1am. Soooo what would a Tayuu be doing? Was she partying in the parlors? Usugumo left early so clearly she was booked for longer and cut it short, getting reprimanded in the process. Was Usugumo supposed to bring the patron back to the Okiya for the rest of the service?
The Kisaragi subplot is interesting too:
Kisaragi is caught with a man in her quarters on her own time which leads to a physical altercation between the handlers and her lover. After this, Kisaragi flees but returns later on, pleading to be taken back into Hatsuko's fold, after being mistreated even more in other places.
Seems as though Kisaragi had been hanging around the wrong crowd as the dude she hooked up with turns up at the Okiya demanding Kisaragi to be given back, as she has now some unsettled debt to the new employer. Her boyfriend/pimp swiftly gets booted out the Okiya and Kisaragi is dealt with later as we never see her back. My guess is that she will have to make some serious money for all the trouble she's caused. So we have a case where a Tayuu leaves and ends up in an implied seedy brothel, when she returns she will probably be put to work as a Courtesan again. So clearly the lines are blurry when it comes to the Tayuu's "prestige" in this movie.
In Yukiko's own storyline, she goes from being ashamed of her background growing up in a brothel, to leaning into her family's trade. Even though she seemingly cares for the girls in the brothel, she takes pleasure in being the madame, so she will eventually learn to ignore the bitter taste she felt when she was driven to suicide by the rejection of her boyfriend's family at the beginning of the movie. "What an awful profession!" she exclaims when she is told that the stomach spasms Usugumo suffers from, are very common among the working girls. But she is quickly assured that she will learn to see it differently with time. The doctor explains that these girls "live life to the fullest" which must be the most backwards way to say "they are exploited to the fullest".
I do think the movie gets it right, that Tayuu would have been better treated than other working girls in less prestigious houses but i do wonder why? In the movie, they offer no particularly unique services to their patrons, we don't see their accomplishments and we don't hear about them being specially gifted or clever. In fact one Tayuu remarks that there are so many girls in the pipeline, it doesn't matter if a new young girls enters the profession, hinting at how the machine will grind them up one after another. In fact only Yukiko is deigned pure enough to find true love, as remarked by Kisaragi in the beginning of the movie, she herself being the poster child of unlucky love. But Yukiko does in fact not find true love, being conned by the doctor just as he conned her mother.
In the end Yukiko takes the side of her mother when everything comes out: Doctor Matoba had been playing Hatsuko like a fiddle, wanting her to invest in a new clinic. When he confessed that he was never going to marry Hatsuko but instead run away with Yukiko, the mother accepts and hands over the money she had saved up. After this he confronts Yukiko with the whole truth about his feelings for her and how he now has enough money to build a life together in Tokyo. Furious, disappointed and outraged, Yukiko grabs her sewing scissors and threatens the doctor. In a heartbreaking scene without words, it is implied that Hatsuko wants to dispose of Yukiko:
To his credit, the doctor then bids his farewell and promises they will never see each other again. To his discredit, he never returned the money Hatsuko had given him. Hatsuko had one last chance to stand up for her daughter but she was in too deep for her man. Yukiko on the other hand stayed true to her ideals of standing in for her mother and even mentions how the money Matoba accepted was made by exploitation. She serves as the modern moral compass that would have been novel in this type of setting.
I really enjoyed the movie. Like i mention i enjoyed how most of the women interact in a non-dramatic way with each other and how Yukiko stayed firm in her core values in a situation where i would probably have given in to the prospect of marrying a 5/10 young doctor and move to Tokyo. I like how Hatsuko is portrayed as flawed and yet an elegant and competent business woman, caring to her daughter but also a tad selfish in her urges. Maybe i interpret the last scene incorrectly? You let me know what you think!
Thank you for your ask! It was really fun to dive into this movie!
Link to the whole movie: https://m.ok.ru/video/2099175295598
















