3. Miss Oyu

“Mizoguchi’s films conjugate three movements: the movement of the actors’ bodies, the movement of the camera, and the movement of the music. Sometimes these movements are synchronic. That’s when we speak of harmony. However, harmony does not signify story. The story commences with dissonance, the freewheeling effect, the chalk-scored board, or the snagged duration, when the movements begin desynchronising. As if (to return momentarily to our dental metaphor) the consolatory music were to become stuck, the local anaesthetic ceased to function, and the picture collapsed along with the chair. Mizoguchi restrains his actors, camera, and music on a leash that is only ever slackened to catch them once more. Therein lies his cruelty.” – Serge Daney, “Mizogochi and the Hard Law of Desire,” 1986

Serge Daney regarded Kenji Mizoguchi as a master of cinematic space and moral complexity. For him, Mizoguchi’s long takes and fluid camera movements were not mere stylistic flourishes; they revealed the tragic weight of social structures, particularly as experienced by women. Daney admired how Mizoguchi portrayed suffering not as a spectacle, but as endurance shaped by the constraints of time, ritual, and framing.

This programme is presented in collaboration with Arta Barzanji and Gerard-Jan Claes, who edited and compiled for Sabzian the issue ‘Serge Daney and the Promise of Cinema, available in English and French, featuring contributions from critics, academics, and translators from around the world.