Along with Rohmer, Ozu is one of my favourite filmmakers. Yet until the recent past, I had not seen either film maker's work.
I saw a number of Ozu's films in a retrospective of sorts last year at the NSW Art Gallery. The core of Ozu's work is his films on the post-war Japanese family circa early 1950s. In particular, Ozu concentrates on a three generation structure for these films with the same actors playing different protagonists. In his much reviewed triptych of Early Summer, Late Spring and Tokyo Story, the characters have the same names but the family dynamics change. These particular films have won critical renown abroad and in Japan because they fluently capture a society in transition. The personal history of a family with its attendant disappointments, sadness, estrangement and invisible bonds as a microcosm of a nation is not an unfamiliar theme but Ozu takes very simple, elegantly framed elements to effectively bring out universal truths. Of the films, both Tokyo Story and Early Summer have a subtle but clear thread of inter-generational conflict. Tokyo Story deals with the marginalisation of the pre-war generation (the grandparents) in the modern Japanese family and is universally considered Ozu's best, though I didn't find this to be the case. Ozu is clearly drawn to this theme as his other films also have echoes of Tokyo Story. Early Summer, however, concentrates on his female protagonist (Ozu regular Setsuko Hara) i.e. the modern Japanese woman and her limited emancipation. Ozu does have freer representations of women in the marginal characters in his films but by and large the major characters have their choices limited by the duties owed to a family and the restrictions imposed by society. Nevertheless I don't think Ozu is concerned with the politics of this situation, things come to pass and if this contradicts their deepest desires, people don't complain but simply resume life. My personal favourite is Late Spring which deals with the marriage of a daughter (Setsuko Hara again as the "Noriko" character) unwilling to disrupt her companiable domestic set up with her father (played by another regular, Chisyu Ryu - Ryu and Hara work very effectively together). Unlike the other films, Ozu uses a single dramatic episode at a Noh drama viewing which drives the narrative forward to its conclusion. The father must get his daughter married even if it goes against his grain and to bring this about he has to sow the seeds of doubt in her mind regarding his own marital intent. The inevitable result is the coming apart of their harmonious domestic set-up. This disruption causes pain and yet must be gone through. On one level the film is on the inevitable transition into adulthood which must be accompanied by a rupture with the natal home. Yet on another level - and here Ozu departs from most narratives - Ozu shows that this set-up is complete and answers its protagonists needs. Ozu shows the strong bonds that can exist in families and the film is quite remarkable in that its non-traditional family set up is not rooted in a sexual relationship, or at least an inter-family relationship, but in the basic family unit. I am sure the relationship can be subjected to Freudian analysis but that is to miss the subtle, interwoven patterns of Asian familial set-ups. It's that singular film where the arc of the story biases you towards the continuance of the father-daughter relationship and not romantic fulfilment. The propulsion into adulthood as defined by society leaves both characters lonely and its final image of the father alone at home is surely one of the most poignant shots in cinema. In some ways it is a film that will always be an oddity - its themes and conclusion, for example, is hardly in tune with the times we live in where sexual fulfilment and the call to action are both social imperatives.
All the films also have numerous allusions to the war - returned soldiers, lost sons, the hardships of the women who stayed home. Ozu doesn't step back into the time however, the war is a silent presence in the movies. Life has moved on and Ozu simply looks at it post-war. Ozu's themes will of course be familiar to Indians. It also made me think a bit of my grandparents' life - in Ozu's films for example they are the modern generation thrusting forward into the future and leaving a slightly bewildered older generation in its wake. Their move from the villages of Tamil Nadu to city life must have been a somewhat similar rupture with the past.
Of the other films I saw, two were outliers. Early Spring, an exceptionally long movie, deals with the salaryman and modernizing Japan and foreshadows the disconnected nature of modern life; it is successful in parts. For Floating Weeds, a remake of an earlier film, Ozu departs to a fishing village and a visiting itinerant theatre group. More than his other films, there is a sense of something slightly archaic in its themes - Ozu is a bit of a nostalgist and this can create sentimental errors, at times I felt I was watching an Indian movie where everything must be made palpably obvious. Floating Weeds is, however, in colour and Ozu's use of it is masterful. The movie needs to be watched simply for the way hue and set design function in the film.
Ozu is of course extensively discussed on the web, in particular his style of film-making, themes, the use of pillow shots, stations, city buildings et al. A few links here, here, here, here and here.
I saw a number of Ozu's films in a retrospective of sorts last year at the NSW Art Gallery. The core of Ozu's work is his films on the post-war Japanese family circa early 1950s. In particular, Ozu concentrates on a three generation structure for these films with the same actors playing different protagonists. In his much reviewed triptych of Early Summer, Late Spring and Tokyo Story, the characters have the same names but the family dynamics change. These particular films have won critical renown abroad and in Japan because they fluently capture a society in transition. The personal history of a family with its attendant disappointments, sadness, estrangement and invisible bonds as a microcosm of a nation is not an unfamiliar theme but Ozu takes very simple, elegantly framed elements to effectively bring out universal truths. Of the films, both Tokyo Story and Early Summer have a subtle but clear thread of inter-generational conflict. Tokyo Story deals with the marginalisation of the pre-war generation (the grandparents) in the modern Japanese family and is universally considered Ozu's best, though I didn't find this to be the case. Ozu is clearly drawn to this theme as his other films also have echoes of Tokyo Story. Early Summer, however, concentrates on his female protagonist (Ozu regular Setsuko Hara) i.e. the modern Japanese woman and her limited emancipation. Ozu does have freer representations of women in the marginal characters in his films but by and large the major characters have their choices limited by the duties owed to a family and the restrictions imposed by society. Nevertheless I don't think Ozu is concerned with the politics of this situation, things come to pass and if this contradicts their deepest desires, people don't complain but simply resume life. My personal favourite is Late Spring which deals with the marriage of a daughter (Setsuko Hara again as the "Noriko" character) unwilling to disrupt her companiable domestic set up with her father (played by another regular, Chisyu Ryu - Ryu and Hara work very effectively together). Unlike the other films, Ozu uses a single dramatic episode at a Noh drama viewing which drives the narrative forward to its conclusion. The father must get his daughter married even if it goes against his grain and to bring this about he has to sow the seeds of doubt in her mind regarding his own marital intent. The inevitable result is the coming apart of their harmonious domestic set-up. This disruption causes pain and yet must be gone through. On one level the film is on the inevitable transition into adulthood which must be accompanied by a rupture with the natal home. Yet on another level - and here Ozu departs from most narratives - Ozu shows that this set-up is complete and answers its protagonists needs. Ozu shows the strong bonds that can exist in families and the film is quite remarkable in that its non-traditional family set up is not rooted in a sexual relationship, or at least an inter-family relationship, but in the basic family unit. I am sure the relationship can be subjected to Freudian analysis but that is to miss the subtle, interwoven patterns of Asian familial set-ups. It's that singular film where the arc of the story biases you towards the continuance of the father-daughter relationship and not romantic fulfilment. The propulsion into adulthood as defined by society leaves both characters lonely and its final image of the father alone at home is surely one of the most poignant shots in cinema. In some ways it is a film that will always be an oddity - its themes and conclusion, for example, is hardly in tune with the times we live in where sexual fulfilment and the call to action are both social imperatives.
All the films also have numerous allusions to the war - returned soldiers, lost sons, the hardships of the women who stayed home. Ozu doesn't step back into the time however, the war is a silent presence in the movies. Life has moved on and Ozu simply looks at it post-war. Ozu's themes will of course be familiar to Indians. It also made me think a bit of my grandparents' life - in Ozu's films for example they are the modern generation thrusting forward into the future and leaving a slightly bewildered older generation in its wake. Their move from the villages of Tamil Nadu to city life must have been a somewhat similar rupture with the past.
Of the other films I saw, two were outliers. Early Spring, an exceptionally long movie, deals with the salaryman and modernizing Japan and foreshadows the disconnected nature of modern life; it is successful in parts. For Floating Weeds, a remake of an earlier film, Ozu departs to a fishing village and a visiting itinerant theatre group. More than his other films, there is a sense of something slightly archaic in its themes - Ozu is a bit of a nostalgist and this can create sentimental errors, at times I felt I was watching an Indian movie where everything must be made palpably obvious. Floating Weeds is, however, in colour and Ozu's use of it is masterful. The movie needs to be watched simply for the way hue and set design function in the film.Ozu is of course extensively discussed on the web, in particular his style of film-making, themes, the use of pillow shots, stations, city buildings et al. A few links here, here, here, here and here.
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