Ms Oyu (1951) Mizoguchi

This is a great film by Mizoguchi apparently based on a short story by Tanizaki. Tanizaki is a celebrated Japanese writer of the same stature as Kawabata and Oe. Mizoguchi along with Kurosawa and Ozu form the trinity of Japanese directors well-known outside Japan.

The story is a love triangle with two sisters, an older widowed woman who plays Oyu and her younger sister emotionally entangled with a man who falls in love with the older sister, but finds himself married to the younger. The motivations of all three are altruistic and self-sacrificing, but no one is able to find fulfillment or peace on account of the peculiar circumstances forced by social norms and their own ideas of sacrifice.

The theme of self-sacrifice is familiar in Indian movies. But Mizoguchi's characters are more complex and are tormented by conflicting feelings. The final resolution follows a predictable trajectory with the death of the younger sister. This is what would have happened in an Indian film too, but Mizoguchi's film ends with the baby given to Oyu for its upbringing while the man hints at suicide to join his wife in the after-life. The suicide would never be acceptable in an Indian film.