alr

Sisters of the Gion
(Gion no Shimai)

Screening on Film
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.
With Isuzu Yamada, Yoko Umemura.
Japan, 1936, 35mm, black & white, 96 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.

Mizoguchi’s first-hand knowledge of Kyoto’s legendary Gion district, which he regularly patronized during his many years in the city, is apparent in Sisters of the Gion’s scrupulous, almost documentary, attention to the nuanced details which reveal the stark reality of the modern-day geisha’s grueling work and life. Izumu Yamada bristles with steely determination as a outspokenly modern geisha who views the world through a jaundiced and always questioning eye yet still struggles desperately to help her beloved sister avoid the same pattern of abuse and degradation which Mizoguchi’s angry and sobering film makes clear is the lot of too many Japanese women. Mizoguchi’s only work to win the coveted Kinema Junpo Best Film of the Year Award, Sisters of the Gion ignited a fierce debate about the place of the geisha within modern Japan. An early expression of Mizoguchi’s expressive camera, here extended tracking shots are used to poetically reveal women’s ultimate marginality in a world always drifting away from them.

Part of film series

Read more

The Tales and Tragedies of Kenji Mizoguchi

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig

Read more

Rosine Mbakam, 2025 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

Read more

The Illusory Tableaux of Georges Méliès

Read more

Activism and Post-Activism. Korean Documentary Cinema, 1981-2022

Read more

Fables of the Reconstruction. Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias

Read more

Ben Rivers, Back to the Land

Read more

Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque

Read more

Make Way for Tomorrow. Carson Lund’s Eephus

Read more

Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Collective Monologue