Flowing

"What the future holds can't be known"

Flowing was a 1956 Naruse Mikio film with an all-star female cast. Centered on a failing geisha house and the women who worked there, it showcased their personal problems, debts, and loyalty.

Otsuta is an aging geisha (39 IRL) whose house is diminishing. Once there were 7 geishas working there, now only 2 remain (one of whom is 50-years-old) and her bills are stacking up. Her daughter, Katsuyo, only lasted six months as a geisha and is now looking for work to supplement the family income. Otsuta’s lazy sister and young daughter reside in the house ever since she and her husband broke up. Rounding out the family connections, Otsuta’s step-sister helped her finance the house after Otsuta mortgaged it to give her lover money. The lover promptly left her after receiving the cash. Now she is saddled with heavy debt and a nagging, condescending sister. Into this mix walks in Rika, an older widow (45-years-old) who needs a job and is hired as the maid. Otsuta scrambles to obtain financing to keep her house open and also must confront an extortionist ex-employee. Life as a geisha is never easy.

To clarify, this was not one of those geisha films where the women slept with their customers, these geishas were for entertainment purposes only. The whole career field was languishing in light of modern amusements. Otsuta also wasn’t the most astute businesswoman or ethical. She had a habit of skimming the girls’ profits. Katsuyo felt like she was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea as the daughter of a geisha. She would feel “too small” if she married into another family and what man would marry into hers? Job opportunities for women were few and far between, with long lines around the temporary employment agencies. Rika provided the warmth of the film as she cared for the women calmly, insightfully, and nearly always with a smile. The film was based on a book written by a woman who had been a maid in a geisha house. Currently Tanaka Kinuyo is listed as supporting but she was every bit a main character and our avatar into this world.

It would be difficult to gather a stronger female cast---Tanaka, Yamada Isuzu, Takamine Hideko, Okada Mariko, and Sugimura Haruko to name but a few. It did create a few issues with the ages of the characters. Yamada at 39 was four years older than “older” sister Kahara Natsuko (35). Takamine was just 7 years younger (32) than her film mom! I was actually shocked to find the sisters were only in their 30s. Age discrimination was also shown as poor Rika had been turned away from other jobs for being too old at 45--well, clutch my pearls! And oddly Otsuta found the name Rika to be too complicated and foreign to say so she nicknamed her Oharu, the movie character Tanaka played in “Oharu” (1952).

Much like a river, Flowing, carried these women downstream in their lives, inexorably pulled by age, societal changes, and a need for love and acceptance. Loneliness was bred into their lifestyle despite spending their days entertaining men with song and shamisen. Relationships, like money, flowed in and out of their lives. Stability was a hard boulder to cling to as life rushed around them. I loved the cast and idea behind this film, yet I also found it overly long and repetitive. This is one of those films I desperately wished to enjoy more than I did. It was not a loss, for how could spending two hours with women displaying their polished craft ever be a waste? Even when my mind wandered, I was grateful to take a ride on the river of time with them.

19 February 2026

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