Memoirs of a Geisha

Year: 2005

Genre: Drama

Direction: Rob Marshall

Cast: Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, and Michelle Yeoh

Rating: Good

This is a serious, yet touching and memorable movie. Now, how I came about to watch this movie -My colleague gave me the book to read. It was not with any great interest that I started reading the book. And even after I started reading, there was nothing too exciting that kept me reading, yet there was some curiosity that made me continue. I would not say that the book is a great literary piece of work. It seems written in simple language without any great elements involved. But yes, the story is a peculiar one.

Chiyo, belongs to a very poor fisherman family, where her mother is on her death bed. She has an elder sister too. The girls are sold to a wealthy man, who inturn sells them again. Chiyo is sold to a Geisha house. For the first few years of her life, she cries, tries to run away, is harassed by another Geisha, and suffers a lot of pain. But eventually we see, how she keeps her will-power and goes on to become one of the most popular Geisha in Gion.

The journey is amazing. In the book, the journey doesn't seem that interesting as there are many incidents happening in between. But the movie has the flow and the visualization is wonderful.

The movie has quite a lot of breathtakingly wonderful shots. The shots are such that you seem to notice nothing but the beauty in it. Be it the shot where little Chiyo runs through the Orange gateways to put the coins which the Chairman gave, or the cherry blossom, or even the flowing water with the bleeding colours of the clothes.

The book was written by Arthur Golden, published in 1997, and is fictional. The movie was based on the book and directed by Rob Marshall in 2005.