HYBRID | A Master of Human Experience: Talk on Mizoguchi Kenji by Alexander Jacoby

Mizoguchi Kenji is considered one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers, and one of its most politically acute directors in the early to mid-20th century. Engaging both with Japan’s cultural and political history and with its tumultuous present, he avidly explored the contrasts between tradition and modernity in a fast-changing country, blending a piercing criticism of dominant social values with the intimacy of domestic struggles, and often elevating the personal tragedies of his characters to symbols of anguish for societal oppression.

To coincide with a new season of film screenings highlighting the finest achievements of Mizoguchi’s latest years, Japan House London is delighted to invite film scholar and Japanese film critic Alexander Jacoby, who has curated this season’s selection, to give a talk illustrating this iconic director’s life and creative career.

During this talk, Jacoby expands on Mizoguchi’s work in the 1950s, which balanced period films with contemporary, political subject matter. His later films respond to the situation of a devastated Japan emerging from war and occupation into an era of liberal democracy. He sensitively dramatized female experience, highlighted in his depictions of the expected role and exploitation of Japanese women. He also engaged with Japan’s literary heritage, adapting and creatively transforming classics of Japanese literature: from Ihara Saikaku to Mori Ōgai and Chikamatsu Monzaemon, many of Mizoguchi’s films took inspiration from some of Japan’s most renowned writers, novelists and dramatists.

Japan House London’s film season Focus on Mizoguchi Kenji, specially curated by Alexander Jacoby, runs on multiple dates from February to June 2024.

About the Speaker

Alexander Jacoby lectures on Japanese cinema at Oxford Brookes University, and is the author of A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors (2008, Stone Bridge Press) and a forthcoming monograph on Hirokazu Koreeda (British Film Institute / Bloomsbury). He has curated retrospectives of Japanese film at BFI South Bank, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna and the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy.

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