by Allan Fish
(Japan 1953 135m) DVD1/2
Aka. Tokyo Monogatari
Isn’t life disappointing?
p Takeshi Yamamoto d Yasujiro Ozu w Yasujiro Ozu, Hogo Noda ph Yuharu Atsuta ed Yoshiyasu Hamamura m Kojun Saito art Tatsuo Hamada
Chishu Ryu (Shukishi Hirayama), Chieko Higashiyama (Tomi Hirayama), Setsuko Hara (Noriko), Haruko Sugimura (Shige Kaneko), Nobuo Nakamura (Kurazo Kaneko), So Yamamura (Koichi), Kuniko Miyaki, Eijiro Tono, Kyoko Kagawa, Shiro Osaka,
Indeed. That quote sounds more like something out of a Mike Leigh drama; one can imagine it issuing from the mouth of a Timothy Spall or a Lesley Manville with ease, yet it’s from Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story. Ozu’s masterpiece is a film not only about migration to the city, but about man’s inherent neglect of our parents in old age. It was also a thoroughly refreshing No 1 in John Walker’s “Halliwell’s Top 1,000.”
Shukishi and Tomi are an elderly couple living in a small Japanese coastal town whose children have, with the exception of a daughter who works as a schoolteacher, gone to the big city, one of whom was killed in military service. When they go to see their children and grand-children in the big city they are treated, if not coldly, then as an embarrassment, to be entertained, ushered away and kept from view.
Among other things it’s a study of how marriage can change people. One son has married a self-seeking wife who thinks only of money and social position and encourages her husband to be the same, perhaps against his better instincts. They are happy to abuse the generosity of their widowed sister-in-law, Noriko, who seems more than happy to meet the parents of her dearly departed husband. Certainly the old couple spend their happier moments with the lovely Noriko, but cannot have a bad word said about their children, even when their thoughtless callousness merits it. The difference between this and most films about elderly neglect is that the parents’ love is so unconditional, and their naivety towards their cynical children and in-laws so great, that they only think of the inconvenience they are putting their children to; as when, having been shipped off to a health spa, the couple ruminate on what this must have cost their children, not on the fact that they are happy to be rid of them.
Ozu’s films are all very personal experiences and have a common grounding in Japanese custom and the strength and loyalty of families. But those who say seeing one Ozu is to see them all are missing out on a rich cinematic tapestry indeed. Everyone can find some empathy in this film, because its themes are universal and not just peculiar to the Japanese vernacular. So many of our elderly live alone and in neglect from children who have long since ceased to care. Ozu is happy to let his story dictate the running time and it is one of his longest films, but there isn’t a single ounce of fat here. Not a word is said that isn’t absolutely relevant to the issues at hand and to the story. No-one can fail to be moved by it, not just by the goodness on show from the old couple and dear Noriko, but from the callousness of the children. When Tomi has died and the children return for the funeral, it’s seemingly under duress. They would rather be back in the city continuing their sad, insular lives. Even their death is an inconvenience to them.
That we care so much is not just down to the excellence of the direction and the accusatory stance of the script, but due to the performances. Two of Ozu’s stalwarts are on top form here; Setsuko Hara probably projects all that is good about Japanese culture better than anyone before or since and Chishu Ryu is truly one of the great character actors in world cinema, his performances as important to Ozu as Cherkassov to Eisenstein, Mastroianni to Fellini, Björnstrand to Bergman, and Mifune to Kurosawa. He says as much with a sigh as most could do with a monologue, and don’t let’s forget Higashiyama as his loyal wife. That such people as these are left seemingly to rot is probably the greatest exhibit that the prosecution against the standards of modern society can offer. Life may be disappointing, but it’s a richer experience for films such as this.
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I am with Allan on this film lock, stock and barrel.
It is actually tid for No. 1 with me with th efilm I designated as No. 1, Mizoguchi’s SANSHO THE BAILIFF, but as I had an Ozu, (LATE SPRING) as my No. 1 of the 40’s, I decided to place TOKYO STORY as No. 2.
I’ll have more to say about it later today on this thread.
Superlative capsule here.
Excellent review Mr. Fish. One of those films that concerns itself with the cycle of life. It’s issues are universal.
Splendid review! Made in 1953, “Tokyo Story” is fascinating in retrospect for its documentation of life in post-war Japan, characterized by rapid change and 6-day work weeks that created the prosperity that Japanese now enjoy. The film has many narrative ellipses, where it skips events or action, but it lingers on seemingly trivial facets of daily life. The camera is usually static, often at floor-mat level even after the characters stand. I found the lower-than-usual perspective and the tendency of characters to come and go from the frame a nice change from conventional camera placement. “Tokyo Story” has a measured, slow pace, which I associate with a certain style of Japanese film. It takes patience until I get used to it, but after a while I fell into this film’s metronomic rhythm. The film’s pace is a large part of its poetry.
It’s one of my best films of this decade.
I just saw Tokyo Story for the first time last weekend. It was quite lovely. So simple and true, really strikingly universal, especially noticeable since so much of Japanese culture and tradition is so different from what I know. As I wrote over at Living in Cinema the other day, it’s refreshing to find a story so devoted to something as prosaic and yet profound as parental relationships to their children, and vice versa. Ozu doesn’t need big twisty plots or heightened dramas to engage our attention. The simplest, saddest moments can be captivating and full of wisdom we may not be ready to hear.
It feels like a film that perhaps a small, dark indie director would make today less well with disaffected grown American children and their bothersome parents, but it works much more evocatively with the transcendent if weary love these two old Japanese married people have for their kids.
One thing I loved was the verisimilitude of their marriage itself. From the opening scenes where they are calmly arguing about who packed the air pillow (or something), it’s clear that these are two people who are utterly comfortable with each other and often have no need of speech to understand what dynamics are really at play. While they do praise their grown children, it seemed to me, they were also silently acknowledging their faults, if not willing to condemn them for it. They have an understanding of what growing up means in relation to one’s parents, perhaps as a result of going through the process with their own parents years ago. I saw wisdom, resignation, love, disappointment and pride in their performances, sometimes all at once. Really subtle and remarkable.
Also, Noriko? That’s got to be one of the best smiles ever to light up the screen. I just wanted to pet her every moment the camera turned on her and carry her around in my pocket for safe keeping every time the camera left her.
Joe, Bill and Jenny, thanks for the comments.
Jenny, Noriko is Setsuko Hara, who all film lovers know well and love well. If this is your first Ozu, Jenny, you have some catching up to do…
Jennifer:
That was a BEAUTIFUL appraisal there of this emotionally overwhelming film.
All of your observations here ring true:
“So simple and true, really strikingly universal, especially noticeable since so much of Japanese culture and tradition is so different from what I know. ”
“One thing I loved was the verisimilitude of their marriage itself.”
“I saw wisdom, resignation, love, disappointment and pride in their performances, sometimes all at once.”
“Also, Noriko? That’s got to be one of the best smiles ever to light up the screen. I just wanted to pet her every moment the camera turned on her and carry her around in my pocket for safe keeping every time the camera left .”
For a person who had never seen an Ozu, you sure interpreted this masterpiece perfectly.
Splendid review by Allan, and a wonderful description of a first encounter with Ozu through this film by Jennybee.
This was one that made many a person in my useless film class upset. Too boring, many insisted. While they were at it, several people went after Citizen Kane. Down with “Sight and Sound,” they wailed. And then they stormed the Bastille. The guillotines soon followed…
No Vin Diesel, you see…who needs quality when you can have excrement.
Allan, unquestionably a worthy #1, a movie I saw just recently and that made a deep impression on me. You covered the theme, mood, and acting so well that I don’t think I can add anything to what you wrote. But I thought that Ozu’s unique visual sense and way of telling the story were as remarkable as the story itself.
One thing I noticed is how Ozu filled the frame. Some of the cramped interiors were so filled with blocks of black, white, and every imaginable tonal gradation of gray that they took on an almost abstract quality and began to look like a Japanese woodcut print. Not only that, but the frame was often composed further of layers of images, one superimposed on several successive layers so that the image achieved a feeling of incredible depth; its depth seemed far greater than its width or height. For example, one character would be sitting in the foreground, another character would be sitting directly behind the first, they would both be talking to a third person standing outside the window, behind whom would be the street and behind that all the buildings in the background. Or the frame would consist of a series of rooms and doorways, so that you might be looking at one room in the foreground, a doorway, another room behind it, another doorway, and yet a third room behind it. Hardly ever were there any curved lines in the composition. A conspicuous exception was when the old couple went to the resort and sat on the seawall looking out at the sea.
This was also one of the few scenes that contained an expanse of empty space (the sea) or that actually took place outdoors. (Some other scenes that at first appeared to be set outdoors were revealed to be glimpsed through an open window.) Nearly all of the movie took place indoors. However, these indoor scenes were linked with brief shots of the streets, the city, or the harbor, and I eventually realized that that’s exactly what these seemingly abstract outdoors sections with none of the characters in them were: transitional passages to indicate the passing of time (often that the next scene occurred the next day) or occasionally a change of setting. Yet other passages would show, for example, first a boat gliding into a harbor, then a train rolling down a track, then maybe a person (but not one of the characters) walking down a street. These passages seemed to me to be a meditation on the unstoppable movement of time; logically they had nothing to do with the narrative.
Then there was the way Ozu arranged the characters in the cramped rooms. They were nearly always filmed from straight on, directly from the back, or in exact profile. Sometimes a group of characters would be lined up all in profile, all facing the same direction, and lined up one behind the other in a row, each face level with the other and in exactly the same position. Or smaller groups of people would be photographed all facing the same direction, facing one another, or perhaps with two facing to the left of the frame and one facing to the right. Again, all right angles, no curves, no three-quarters profiles.
I hope that made sense; it’s so difficult to put such abstractions into words. With some directors such strong and idiosyncratic visuals would have distracted from the human elements of the story–director’s stunts overwhelming the people, situations, and emotions. But I never got that sense with this movie. The visuals complemented the narrative elements and simply added another dimension of enjoyment.
Now that the countdown is complete, I’ve got to watch a couple more films, then get to work on my own list of the top-25. This was just a wonderful series and has given me immense enjoyment as well as exposing me to a number of new movies and directors. All in all, just a superb job–the choice of films, the succinct and superbly written descriptions and analyses, and the fodder they’ve provided for thought and comment. Thank you, Allan.
“One thing I noticed is how Ozu filled the frame. Some of the cramped interiors were so filled with blocks of black, white, and every imaginable tonal gradation of gray that they took on an almost abstract quality and began to look like a Japanese woodcut print. Not only that, but the frame was often composed further of layers of images, one superimposed on several successive layers so that the image achieved a feeling of incredible depth; its depth seemed far greater than its width or height.”
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant stuff there R.D. This is certainly a thorough explanation of Ozu’s style, which could certainly be culled from a number of his films. You made all the sense in the world there, and further enriched both Allan’s fine review, and the singular experience of viewing this emotional masterpiece.
What moved me most of all in this film was the character played luminously by Setsuko Hara. She was not a blood relative of the aging couple, only a daughter-in-law who stayed around to watch and care care of her aging in-laws, while the “real” children were indifferent and self-absorbed to give their parents any attention.
Near the conclusion, the most shattering scene in the film unfolds, one that always makes me cry. Chishu Ryu (after his wife has passed on) tells Noriko, who has refused to meet anyone else out of loyalty to her dead husband (killed in the war) that ‘she showed more love and compassion to his in-laws than any of our children, and ‘you’re not even a blood relative.’
It’s a tearful, utterly poignant moment that is intended to stay with you for all-time, and for those who have seen this staggering work of cinema –surely one of the truly great films in the history of the cinema. TOKYO STORY is transcendent, and it’s meant to last a lifetime.
R.D. You have again come to this site with artful, serious, and passionate discussion on your mind.
You have transcribed Mr. Ozu perfectly. Thank You very much Sir.
Sam, I totally agree with you about the character Noriko. She is the only really sympathetic character of the younger generation in the movie ( well, aside from the young daughter who still lives at home). The son who is a doctor is semi-sympathetic, but his wife, children, and especially his sister are horribly unsympathetic and selfish. That the old couple look so forward to visiting their children and the children look upon their visit as an imposition, a distraction from their own lives, is just truly a heartbreaking situation. When they buy the parents a holiday at the seaside–ignoring the fact thay their parents came all the way to Tokyo to be with them–they are trying to assuage their guilt and get rid of the parents at the same time. In other words, even though they tell themselves they are giving their parents a treat, they are really just doing it for their own convenience. Today we regularly witness parents overindulging their children by buying them goodies out of guilt for not spending time with them. In “Tokyo Story,” this generational situation is reversed.
This brings up the issue of the difference between traditional and postwar Japanese values. Ozu seems to be condemning the materializing and Westernizing of Japanese culture. The children are so focused on making money, acquiring goods, keeping up with modern ways, and getting ahead in their new world that they don’t have time to be feeling, empathic human beings. That poor old couple are all alone in an alien world that they can’t understand but make an effort to tolerate for their children’s sake. For the longest time I didn’t realized that Noriko was only their daughter-in-law; I assumed that they had at least one child with some human feelings. Everyone keeps telling Noriko to stop clinging to the past and get on with her life, yet this is exactly how she preserves her sensitivity and humanity. What a paradox.
The movie did provide me with one good laugh, though, the name of the beauty shop that horrid, bossy daughter runs from her home: the Ooh-la-la Beauty Parlor!
Oh Boy R.D.
Such rhetorical and interpretive excellence. You are a gifted man, and your humilty is amazing.
Indeed, your descriptions of the family are painfully true. And you bring up another central strain in the film, that paradox in your astute and beautifully-written second paragraph. I can see why you would find it unbelievable that the couple couldn’t produce one loving offspring, but you are right methinks in pointing to Ozu’s deliberate condemnation of the Westernization of Japanese society. At the very center of this paradox of course is Noriko, who wrenchingly personifies that there will always be some degree of true humanity in all the corruption and adversity.
Just thinking right now of Setsuko Hara and this shattering masterpiece has me tearing up as I write this is the school library. I kid you not.
LOL on the name of that Beauty Parlour!!!!
Good one!
You’d better believe it, Finchy, he will be welling up. That’s why the entire Eastern coast isn’t worried about global warming raising the world’s waters, they’re more concerned about Sam Juliano holding an Ozu festival in his house. By my estimations, in a week, this man could cry so much personally produced H2O that he would not only flood the valley in which Fairview sits, but wipe out the entire New York state. He has to take a flip-bin full of Kleenex with him whenever he goes to the opera.
Ha! Now that’s a good one!hehehehe
Late to the party, as usual, but have to say that this is a great choice as number 1, and that Allan has done a great job in his review.