The Crucified Lovers (a better title than Story of Chikamatsu) is a slow to build but nearly perfectly directed tragedy that shows what how much the society around them, all those busy body workers who have been shaped by the times and attitudes and value of "property," that it would be something of a miracle for the "happy" ending (which means... what). Hasegawa and Kagawa give two of the most anguished, intense harrowing performances of any Japaneze film of the 1950s (Shindo also plays a relentlessly feckless jerk very convincingly), and that's a statement to make given the golden age of Japanese cinema in the decade (with 1954 being maybe its crowning year).
Even knowing that Mizoguchi made similar films at that same period, it's like he can't help himself to direct the tortured melodrama to such a degree that you wouldn't be far off from thinking the fire from the story wouldn't catch on in the theater or room you're watching. And there are individual shots and passages - the doomed couple in the little boat on the fog-strewn water where Kagawa decides she does want to live because of her love, or when the couple finally embrace on that country road - that can haunt you if you're open to it.
By the time you get to that ending... my goodndss, that hits like a brick to the face - not because of the Doom for the lovers, but rather that it is this 'serenely look as someone observes on Mohei. They may be lost in the eyes of theirs society, but they have a love stronger than most others in their world.
Even knowing that Mizoguchi made similar films at that same period, it's like he can't help himself to direct the tortured melodrama to such a degree that you wouldn't be far off from thinking the fire from the story wouldn't catch on in the theater or room you're watching. And there are individual shots and passages - the doomed couple in the little boat on the fog-strewn water where Kagawa decides she does want to live because of her love, or when the couple finally embrace on that country road - that can haunt you if you're open to it.
By the time you get to that ending... my goodndss, that hits like a brick to the face - not because of the Doom for the lovers, but rather that it is this 'serenely look as someone observes on Mohei. They may be lost in the eyes of theirs society, but they have a love stronger than most others in their world.