A film critique: Memoirs of a Geisha

I went to see the film Memoirs of a Geisha today. I've read the book probably half a dozen times, so I have to admit that I had high expectations.

First of all, the film is visually stunning. As someone who is not well-versed in the Geisha culture of Japan, I had a hard time imagining the elaborate costumes, locations and scenery described in the book. The film takes great care to make everything appear genuine and realistic. Much of the book is dedicated to description, so with the film there is a lot more room for dialogue and interactions between the characters. I liked that aspect.

Another thing that I liked was that the film kept the bones of the book intact, for the most part. There were some scenes (like a fire in the okiya and an American colonel) that never surfaced in the book, but I felt that the changes the filmmakers made helped to move the plot along and didn't detract from the point of the film itself.

If you haven't read the book, I'd recommend doing so. It might have been kind of hard to follow along otherwise, because certain key themes from the book (what a danna is, for example) weren't really expanded upon in the film. It would have been pretty easy for "older sister" Mameha to explain that a danna was more than just a customer of a geisha, but a companion. A geisha became like a second wife to her danna and therefore afforded certain priveleges to him that an ordinary customer would not receive. I don't think that was made clear in the movie version.

Finally, I didn't feel that the relationships between the film's main character (Sayuri) and some of the film's more minor characters (Nobu and the Chairman) were really as deep as they could have been. That could have been because there was so much ground to cover. They never got into the fact that Sayuri and Nobu were actually great friends, or that the Chairman for the most part ignored Sayuri during her time as a geisha.

Overall, I think the film was good, but didn't really exceed my expectations. Final grade: B+