Beauty's Sorrows is about a classic love triangle. Two men vie for the attentions of a young woman, the daughter of a famous artist. A study in contrasts, the men approach the woman from two different directions: One is an unrepentant womanizer, the other is an intellectual and romantic. Eventually, the suave experience of the one overcomes the stumbling but true affections of the other. The two marry and as a consolation prize of sorts the father gives a statue of his daughter to the intellectual. The marriage is a rocky one and the husband's insincerity drives the daughter into ill health. She dies and in his grief, her husband visits the intellectual to ask for the statue. The two quarrel, reigniting their animosities, and in the heat of the moment kill one another. Like all directors, Yasujio Ozu was required to make studio pictures in order to break into the movie business. This film is from the five-year period known as Ozu's prohibitionary period, the time when he learned the techniques and practices of filmmaking.
by Brian Whitener
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