| American lawyer Clarence Darrow once quipped that "The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children," but in the movies we usually see only one half of the ruination at any given time. It requires a director with heightened sensitivities to look at both sides of the equation simultaneously.
Japan’s Yasujiro Ozu (1903-63) was one such filmmaker, and his 1953 tatami mat drama Tokyo Story (a.k.a. Tokyo Monogatari) is a film that might just prompt you, ever so subtly, to reconsider your relationship with your own parents, be they living, dead or somewhere in between.
Tokyo Story follows the elderly Shukishi (Chishu Ryu) and his wife Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama) as they journey from their small rural village to visit their grown children in Tokyo. But instead of a warm welcome, the aging couple is disappointed to find that their presence is regarded as an inconvenience by all, and as an outright imposition by selfish daughter Shige (Haruko Sugimura). Ozu captures the awkward silences and tense resentments between generations with his typically unwavering gaze, giving the film a melancholic atmosphere that becomes almost suffocatingly bittersweet at times (mostly due to Kojun Saitô’s emotionally manipulative score).
Still, the film is not entirely unsympathetic to the rationales put forward by the younger generation for neglecting their parents – for one, they’re too busy working and raising their own families to stop everything in the name of filial piety. Moreover, there are unspoken antipathies that suggest Shukishi, an alcoholic, may have been an abusive – or, at best, absent – father when he was younger. Whatever the case, only Shukishi and Tomi’s widowed daughter-in-law Noriko (Setsuko Hara) welcomes them into her home – and even then it’s suggested there may be an ulterior motive for Noriko’s generosity, whether she’s guided by that motive or not.
As a portrait of the changing face of Japanese society in the period after the Second World War, Tokyo Story is a subtle and impressionistic work, content merely to observe the massive transformations at hand rather than to affix blame for cultural forces beyond the control of any individual. What makes the film universally relevant – even now, 50 years later and half a world away – is that it’s a true reflection of family dynamics. Refusing to shy away from the complexity of his topics and themes, Ozu shows us that parents and children may ruin our lives, but we can learn – through compassion, humour and respect – to minimize the damage.
Tokyo Story is only the second Ozu film to be brought out on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection, but this package is a great deal more informative than the one for Good Morning (a.k.a. Ohayo, 1956), which was released a few years ago. The special features on this two-disc set include an insightful commentary by Ozu scholar David Desser, as well as two documentaries. I Lived, But… (1983) delivers a thoroughly researched biography and interviews with many of the master director’s collaborators. The other, Talking with Ozu (1993) is a tribute to the director made up of testimonials from various luminaries in contemporary international cinema (Aki Kaurismaki, Claire Denis, Stanley Kwan, etc.). Look also for the Criterion Collection edition of Ozu’s Floating Weeds, which will be released on DVD later this month. |
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