Street of Shame

A film about the women working in a Tokyo brothel. It follows five of them at once. One is supporting a sick husband and a baby. One is saving to open a shop. One put her son through school and he does not want to know her. One ended up here through debt. One is the youngest and carries the arrangement like a game. The narrative rescues none of them and does not ask the viewer to pity them either. The setting is single: the same house, the same street, the same customers. Behind the film lies a concrete political argument. While it was being made the Japanese parliament was debating a law banning prostitution, and the film takes that debate as its subject directly: the women discuss what will become of them if it passes. The law was adopted that year. Machiko Kyo and Ayako Wakao are in the cast. Kenji Mizoguchi directed; it was his last film and he died the same year. A powerful work closing Mizoguchi's career, for anyone who likes Japanese classics and social realism. Before you watch, know this: the film offers no hope and its final scene ends in a deliberately uncomfortable place.