Appreciating Tokyo Story
Yasujirô Ozu’s Tokyo Story breaks the barrier more than any other Ozu film to appear sporadically in the UK and Europe. In the mid-1950s, awards from the British Film Institute made screenings here and there. In 1972, the film premiered in New York to coincide with an essay by Paul Schrader on transcendental styles in cinema. As well as winning the hearts of influential critics, they realized that silent film became one of the finest arts of cinema of all time.
Sight & Sound’s 1992 to 2002 international critics’ poll listed the film as one of the ten greatest films ever made. It tied for third with Citizen Kane and Vertigo in the 2012 poll. In addition, the film appeared at the top of the most credible movie polls. Lots of filmmakers and film critics talk about it with great admiration. For the moment, people outside of Japan don’t know Ozu. Later until much later than essential Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa, people considered Ozu one of the leading filmmakers in the world.
In 1927, Ozu directed his first film. He became a prolific director in Japan; he joined the military in 1937. However, he would not begin to film regularly again until the late 1940s despite making films during the war years.
Distinctive Style
Like Tokyo Story, in 1953, it developed its most famous yet distinctive style. His films, like Early Summer and Floating Weeds, are also just two examples when discussing the director’s filmography. Therefore, his films in such eras tend to relate to the problems of household life, marriage, and family. Unlike the grand narratives of Kurosawa’s films, they bear little resemblance to Hollywood melodramas which explore similar issues with exaggerated style and emotion.
Sorrowful as it is, Ozu’s stories are quiet yet simple affairs; he colors them with nostalgia. He offers an opportunity to ponder and reflect on their own lives. Plus, it’s about how his films reflect on-screen characters. Western audiences were getting to know Japanese cinema in late 1953. Alternately, Kurosawa had already made his breakthrough with Rashomon and Kenji Mizoguchi moving to the forefront of the international festival scene.
Time has matured in a very different kind of Japanese film. To be able to arrive on the global stage, Ozu still hasn’t reached prestige. In other words, decision-makers consider Tokyo Story “too Japanese” to appear on the market. The film’s dominant theme is the generational conflict between children and parents, depicting the visit of an elderly couple who come to Tokyo.
Open Narrative
They wanted to spend time with their grown children, their families, and the widowed spouse of another son who had died in the war. Something that later makes their parents feel bad as children find that their parents’ visits are a burden to their busy lives. By being an open narrative, Tokyo Story is the perfection of Ozu’s gentle approach to storytelling. There’s no splendid all-encompassing resolution, and neither do any character’s act as villains or heroes.
With the possible exception of their widowed daughter-in-law Noriko, she is one of the most benevolent and heartbreaking characters to appear on the screen. In short, Ozu desires to check the audience’s focuses on small nuances starting from the interaction to examine what is in the film. The city of Tokyo is barely even Ozu depicted despite its importance to the film. Industrial shots set it apart from the rural setting where the film begins and ends.
However, the only time viewers rasp see the city is at the same time as an elderly couple during a bus tour. The major turning points that the film includes are more narrative but left out in plot development.
The Crucial Events
We also never see any of the elder’s train journeys. Like the crucial events near the film’s end, everything happens off-screen. Ozu focuses more on how the characters interact and respond to each other than the actual dramatic moments. Kôgo Noda, the playwright, weaves a worldly story. He often centered character plots around marrying off a princess. It becomes a situation where a series of characters’ lives become an expression in itself.
However, Tokyo Story does not have a minimalistic plot that limits Ozu’s beliefs about everyday life. Tellingly, he provides more than a short drama to engage the audience deeply. We can see how an elderly couple leaves the small town of Onomichi to visit their grandson and son. Inevitably, they troubled their hosts, and felt guilty they couldn’t help but feel guilty about it. Kids will ignore them and take shortcuts.
During the journey, the parents become aware of the arrogance and kindness of their offspring. On the train ride home, the mother gets into trouble until she dies. The simple action arc exudes a cunning yet strong structure. On the other hand, conversation in films usually patterns on shot-reverse shots.
Unobtrusive Devices
The camera will side over the shoulder of the speaking character. It becomes the film’s meditative quality that Ozu enhances in his approach to film style. Instead, he placed his camera right between the two-conversing people. In each sequence, he films each person live; the audience feels like standing in the middle of each character’s conversation. It gives the impression of a conversation that continues to flow naturally.
We will look at each style from position separately. Such a technique becomes a tatami shot because the camera shoots as if someone kneels on a mat. In addition, Ozu films from a much lower altitude than what we use watching. Therefore, the technique increases the audience’s sensation of being in the film space. It makes them much easier to accept and understand the characters.
Ozu’s camera is static. When the shot starts, it doesn’t move except on rare occasions. For example, the shot track is unobtrusive but slow. It always runs along the inner fence revealing parents waiting outside Noriko’s house. Such was the most innovative approach to filmmaking during the period when Ozu made Tokyo Story, which was to remove all editing and motion-related devices.
Transitions of Shots
In addition, Ozu makes transitions between scenes through a series of insert shots. Instead of having simple direct cuts, he ditches editing techniques like wiping, fading, and even dissolving. Simply put, the approach to filmmaking further enhances the reflective quality of Ozu’s films. It brings the character’s humanity further to the foreground. The film entered world film culture to make audiences suspect gradually that its fame was accidental.
According to Ozu himself, it is one of his most melodramatic photos. However, it contains many miniature qualities that make audiences cry and captivate their admirers. The film is a generous introduction to his different world. Therefore, the patterns would appear too neat if they did not carefully bury in the many details of speech and gestures. A personality emerges through brief comparisons.
In one scene, businesswoman Shige is stubborn in packing funeral kimonos for a trip. However, Noriko never thought that her mother-in-law, Tomi, would die, and she was not ready. There is nothing soft about Ozu’s wisdom that can be astringent. In the next scene, the Hirayama family visits their other children after leaving their youngest son, Kyōko, in Onomichi. In descending order of birth, they live with Koichi, Shige, Noriko, and Keizō in Osaka.
Loving Detachment
They had visited Keizō first off-screen. On their way to Tokyo, Noda and Ozu describe their stopover on their way home. Partly aims at allowing the audience to form expectations of how friendly their youngest son is. It would be simple to romanticize Shūkichi, the father. When he staggers back drunk from his reunion, Shige says he is back to his old ways. In the refusal to tip the scales, the same subtle calm emerges.
The being explicit’s implies that Shūkichi once caused family problems, namely at the time of Tomi’s death. Most of the siblings are not that selfish. They are just stuck and busy in the life they have made for themselves. Only a few examples of scenes in Tokyo Story exemplify Ozu’s unique style. In every dialogue scene, Ozu rarely interrupts the speaking character, as if everyone has the full right for us to hear.
He has also applied his distinctive technique more playfully in other films. However, he is more concerned with creating a peaceful world where his character’s identity can stand out. Like Ozu’s loving detachment, he makes an extraordinary wealth of feelings in the final scene.
Happiness and Sorrow
When the audience saw the characters contemplating their future, Noriko couldn’t help but smile. She said to Kyōko that life is a disappointment. On the other hand, Shūkichi convinces Noriko that Noriko should remarry. The neighbors cheerfully warn Shūkichi that she is very lonely now. With such vital disclosures, poetic resonance balances everyday objects and actions. Ordinary watches link daughters-in-law, daughters, and mothers in their hard-earned lineage of feminine wisdom.
After such, Shūkichi greeted a beautiful sunrise, heralding the next day by swiftly pulling out and fanning one’s kimono. The trains’ roar heading back to Tokyo died down to leave the roar of the boats in the bay. Likewise, Tokyo Story is a masterpiece that keeps its audience calm long after the film is over; it becomes a typical Japanese film. As well as depicting this sad inevitability, the film explores how children develop a measure of selfishness in becoming independent from their parents.
It becomes a shield from all of us, a slice-of-life film that lifts many big questions in life. Change, aging, death, sorrow, and also happiness become one.
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