Onna keizu: A long, polite, and very sad time

Is it worth your time?

If you like movies where people stare at wooden walls and sigh for five minutes, you are going to love this. If you need a fast plot or modern pacing, stay far away. This is for the patient folks who don't mind a bit of a slog through historical baggage.

Honestly, watching Onna keizu feels a bit like being a guest in someone’s house where an argument is happening in the other room. You can hear the tension, but you aren't allowed to jump in and fix it.

The Quiet Stuff

Kinuyo Tanaka is the anchor here. She does so much with just a slight tilt of her head. There’s a scene near the middle—you’ll know it because the light hits her face just right for way too long—where you can see the exact moment she decides to just give up on being happy. It’s a total gut punch.

The dialogue is thick. Sometimes it feels like they are reading poetry at each other instead of having a conversation. It’s exhausting. But in a weirdly good way? Like, you feel the weight of their social status in every single word.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Onna keizu (1934) through its definitive frames.

• The silence in the hallway scenes is actually louder than the talking.
• I’m pretty sure someone was holding a candle in a way that would definitely start a fire, but nobody cared.
• The fashion is distractingly pretty, even when everyone is miserable.

It’s not as snappy as Merely a Maid, that’s for sure. It doesn't have that light touch. This movie is buried in its own seriousness.

Wait, what was that?

There is a moment where a character walks in, stands in the corner for a bit, and then walks out without saying a single thing. I replayed it twice. It didn't add anything to the story, but it was just so strange and grounded that I couldn't look away. It felt like real life, where people do weird things for no reason.

The movie gets noticeably better when it stops focusing on the stuffy historical politics and just lets the characters be sad in private. Seriously, the less they worry about 'duty,' the more interesting they actually are. Why do movies always think we care about the noble duty stuff?

Anyway, I probably wouldn't watch this on a Saturday night. It’s a Sunday afternoon, raining outside, 'I need to feel something heavy' kind of movie. Don't expect to walk away feeling energized. You’ll walk away feeling like you need a nap and a glass of water. 🍵