Orin (Shima Iwashita) is a blind woman in the early 20th century who as a young girl became a goze, or itinerant entertainer, one of the few options available to women like her in Japan at the time (one of the others was to be a prostitute). Orin’s life is largely miserable, her misery the result of traditionalist attitudes, but she never grasps that her society is punishing her merely for the twin crimes of being a woman and disabled.Read More »