Jošiwara endžó

The large Yoshiwara district of Edo/Tokyo, which gave a completely new (and absolutely legal) meaning to the term red light district for almost three centuries. This self-sufficient town surrounded by walls with a magnificent entry portal, a gateway to hell for girls or, conversely, to paradise (of venereal diseases) for countless hordes of males. A place with its own police and a place hit by catastrophe (fires, earthquakes). So, logically, it’s also a place with no shortage of powerful stories and so a theme that, in his eighties “geisha" period, he simply had to film. And he did right, because whether you are interested in the day-to-day routine and behind-the-scenes of a posh brothel at the beginning of the twentieth century (recruitment, taming and training girls, hierarchy, morning prayers, “marketing", tricking clients, abortions etc.) or are “merely" seeking powerful stories about people, then you’re in the right place. You can’t really expect Gosha to put on rose-tinted glasses (on the contrary, he has spent his career tearing them off) and so despite the “picturesque" images, he gives us a very chilling insight into the fates of geishas for whom hope no longer exists and whom their environment shapes into an image of itself. (2013.04.02)