G12 M's

Memoirs of a Geisha (Critique)

Creative Non-fiction

The story of Memoirs of a Geisha was all about an impecunious little village girl named Chiyo who was taken away from her family and sold to a strict geisha house in Kyoto's Gion district where she learns how to become a successful geisha in order to survive. Despite of the cruel treatment and force into servitude from the owners and the head of geisha Hatsumomo, her beauty and cleverness became her advantage and took her to become one of the greatest geisha by the name of Sayuri under the mentorship of Mameha. Let me quote one of the line from the movie that I'm inspired by; "You cannot say to the sun "more sun", or to the rain, "less rain". From the fictional perspective, the line that being narrated by the older Chiyo explicitly tells us that not all the time life would be good to us; that there are times that you would questioned it's fairness especially during the hardest time of it; this was absolutely Chiyo learned out of it. What a beautiful piece of lesson that I've learned out of this story; that I can't ask more about life to constantly boon upon me, nonetheless all I need to do is to continue believing despite of the struggle that may I face.

One of the amazing things about this movie is the realistic portrait of the geisha's culture back from it's origin. The writer of the story did an awesome job in the portrayal of the geisha culture which amazingly is pivotal of the Japanese culture, tradition and history. In addtion, it is interesting to note that the writer as well as the director of the movie gives eccentric and scrupulous details of the geisha's image and their culture. I also highly appreciate the cinematography that the production team put into it; makes the movie more realistic and captivating. It is not a typical movie especially, if you're going to notice, that this movie was filmed way back 2005. If you were going to watch it this time period, especially nowadays film industry is now on the next level, still the cinematography, the effects, the characters fit to the story can be compared to the other film.

Because the movie is highly recommended, there just two points that I will going to critique in this movie. First is the finale of the movie, wherein probably most of the audience waited and anticipated that the writer will give much time between Iwamaru and Chiyo to finally their struggle and hardship paid off. The ending part is something that I wanted to see more and give extra minutes in order that the finale will be justified to my own satisfaction. I would recommend to giving extra minutes between Iwamaru and Chiyo after they revealed themselves to each other. Give them an extra minute on how their life would be, how they enjoy themselves after their struggle just to satisfy the audience and the fans of the movie. Lastly, even though the setting of this movie was filmed after the depiction of Japanese History, I still cannot agree with how women during this time were being viewed. The geisha culture among the Japanese has been highly regarded and respect is being measured with how women learned the art of communication. Women in the new era is more than just the deciption of Memoirs of Geisha. Women are more than just a Geisha. I dislike it's portrayal among women but I'm glad that this movie has emphasized how women evolved especially this time. Women should be respected of it's worth wheater she a well trained geisha or just an ordinary women.

As I began to extremely peruse with the story, I began to get allured to the culture presented in the movie. For this, I would highly recommend this movie to everyone especially if you are the kind of person that loses hope in life. After you watch it, this movie will surely inspire you to continue believing despite of the circumstances you may have. The hours that you are going to spend watching this movie is worth and definitely will make you cry. I will encourage everyone to watch and fully understand the intention of the movie. Be open-minded, don't be narrow in order for you to appreciate their culture and the moral values that this movie presented.