I had the same experience as you did Jay the first time i watched Tokyo Story, the film did not affect me until months after i seen it and now i think it is great. I would also recommend Late Spring and An Autumn Afternoon. Also you cant go wrong with the Late Ozu box set from Eclipse. All 5 films are pretty good. Setsuko Hara is an amazing presence on screen.
try LATE SPRING and FLOATING WEEDS
I’ll admit that I’m in the minority on this, but Tokyo Story has a hard time cracking my personal Ozu top ten. I miss the tension and humor of the marriage pictures. But if you liked TOkyo Story, definitely go after the Late Ozu box, as it has probably 3 of Ozu ten best picture’s including Tokyo Twilight, the very fine Late Summer, my personal favorite Equinox Flower. If you like those, the seek out the criterion releases of Late Spring and Early Summer-two of Ozu’s very best works, and even the Floating Weeds set.
After that, I’d recomend skipping Good Morning and start getting the rest of his films from yesasia.com, if you like him enough, I highly recomend The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family and Record of a Tenement Gentleman.
How many times did it take everyone to love it? I have only seen it once and I did like it but I was a little let down due to how highly regarded it is. I’m going to rewatch it as soon as possible. Did it take anyone two viewings?
It took me two viewings before i liked it. It has taken me a while to appreciate Ozu, but now i like his style alot
This was the first Ozu I had ever seen and it opened a lifelong fascination with this director. I say watch anything you can get your hands on by Ozu if you liked Tokyo Story. There really isn’t any good place to start so just dive in, you’ll find loads of others you enjoy just as much.
I was actually fairly unimpressed with this one. It was a good movie, but I actually enjoyed Autumn Afternoon much better.
I put Autumn Afternoon slightly ahead of Tokyo story:
4 1/2 stars:
Equinox Flower
Late Spring
4 stars:
Record of a Tenement Gentleman
Early Spring
Early Summer
The brothers and sisters of the Toda Family
3 1/2 stars:
Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice
The only son
Floating Weeds
A Story of Floating Weeds
Tokyo Twilight
An Autumn Afternoon
Tokyo Story
3 stars:
A Hen in the wind
Late autumn
2 stars:
Good morning
What did the lady forget
There was a father
End of Summer
This film means everything to me of what cinema could be, cinema that is transcendental and not just the story. It is above all form. This film is the best example about the cinema as poetry and not narrative. The Ozu’s pillow shots are very uncommon in the general conception of what a film should be according to standards, always denying narrative and progression, shots that are formalistic, used to stop time passing and to really watch the world we are in. Meditative and contemplative the cinema of Yasujiro Ozu is like living this world in a true way, being sensitive to everything: to landscapes, to trees, to time, to the past, to humans. Thats Why I love this filmmaker.
By the way The best Ozu after the Noriko Trilogy is THE ONLY SON, pure poetry.
Noriko trilogy? Please elaborate, Genaro. Does he use that same character in other films?
Noriko Trilogy consist in three films with the character Noriko acted by Setsuko Hara, it is generally considered his three masterpieces: Late Spring, Early Summer and Tokyo Story. They are similar in many ways, although Tokyo Story is the most melancholic of the three. Early Summer is the “happier” and Late Spring is his most “poetic”.
Thanks for the info. I need more Noriko in my life. Tokyo Story has really stuck with me since I watched it. The characters linger in my mind. I’m very eager to step into Ozu’s world again.
Ozu is an Absolute Master of the Cinema. In the West, at least, “Tokyo Story” is his most famous and revered. Personally I prefer “Record of a Tenement Gentlemen” and his great silent comedy-drama “I Was Born But. . .” But all of Ozu is fabulous.
The key to his art is his cutting against the grain of conventional drama. All the materials of a standard issue “quality” movie (think Capra and Leo McCarey) are there, but Ozu never goes in for the melodramatic “kill” and ignores all the usual stresses of narrative rise and fall. The result is infinite subtlety
“The Only Son” is one of his grimmest films, second only to “Tokyo Twilight” in downbeatness.“Tokyo Story” by contrast as a wisful sadness about it. It’s lovely.
But then so are “There Was a Father,” “Late Spring” and both versions of “Floating Weeds.”
The “Noriko trilogy” does have Hara called Noriko, but the characters, situations and relationships aren’t the same as in a straightforward narrative trilogy. I like Early Summer beginning at the sea, following on from Late Spring ending there. Tokyo Story is fully deserving of its reputation as one of the very greatest films; it’s hard to find fault. Late Spring is absolutely lovely, a bit perkier and more cheerful than Tokyo Story (eg the bike ride scene), though wistful, and involving some pain and relationship problems too. What a joy to have Setsuko Hara and young Kyoko Kagawa together in a scene late in Tokyo Story. Look for clear blue skies and trains in Ozu. In Tokyo Story it’s easy to overlook Chishu Ryu’s skill and believability playing an older man- elsewhere he plays Hara’s older brother.
If you get the chance don’t pass up There Was a Father. It’s Chishu Ryu’s best performance, and the films is absolutely astounding, on top of everyone else’s recommendations. I really think Ozu is the greatest thing to happen in cinema, so, I’d recommend everything I’ve seen except A Hen in the Wind, and the ending to Record of a Tenement Gentleman ruins the film, for me, but it is a very good film beside that.
For me the ending of “Record of a Tenement Gentleman” MAKES the film. Ozu was very much a social critic. While most tend to think of him as a “Conservative” artist in that the subject of the late films is middle-class family life and people following the social dictates of Japanese society, Ozu’s oeuvre as a whole is a lot more complex that that image woudl suggest.He was the poet of white collar middle class life and the greatest director of children of all-time, IMO. The later films show happy families falling apart due to social circumstances they can’t fully control. They’re not “protest” films in the usual sense, but protests are made. “Tokyo Story” indicts the family’s indifference to their parents’ situation. Only the daughter-in-law (an “outsider” as it were) really care. At the close of “The Record of a Tenement Gentleman” Ozu places the enitre situation of lost an abandoned postwar children in the audience’s lap. “What are YOU going to do about this?” the last suite of images scream loud and clear.
I don;t find Ozu slow at all. He’s evenly paced. That’s because he refuses to lunge for cheap melodramtic tricks in situations that 9 directors out of 10 would go for in such fashion.
Oh yes, i don’t see him as a Conservative (or film-making conservative, which he’s often called, either); his films approach social issues from a range of angles, either within each film, or in comparison with other films: he doesn’t tend to facile condemnation or manipulation, there’s a sense of the characters having their reasons, or a mix of viewpoints, helped along by the careful character constructions and thoughtful scripts. He’s a socially minded humanist, no revolutionary for sure, and Tony Rayns dismisses Early Spring for its political Conservatism, but then Tokyo Twilight is not the film of a clear-cut Conservative. There are so many subtle shades of meaning and interpretation in his films and career as a whole. His clever use of colour and inter-scene little colour matches are often overlooked. And yes, superb with kids- whereas Mizoguchi apparently, like Charles Laughton (was this true?), didn’t like them much. And yet Mizo and Laughton came up with Sansho and Night of the Hunter respectively!
Oh Laughton liked those kids tons more than he’s credited for. If you ever get to see the rushes of “Night of the Hunter” it’s obvious that while often frustrated he’s supremely patient with them.
David – I don’t know who has and who hasn’t seen Record of a Tenement Gentleman, and I’d really rather not give it up out of context. So, I’d rather not discuss the ending in this forum, but I can tell you why I didn’t like it in a message if you don’t mind. I certainly understand your viewpoint, though.
I love how in Tokyo Twilight he never condemns the actions of any person. That was a film that could have easily been very conservative, or liberal, but, typical to late Ozu, he never made a statement for or against anything political. That why I love that film so much. The only thing he ends up condemning in the film is the fathers ignorance in the entire situation.
i am so lucky to have no friends that know or talk about any of these “high end” films . . . . . . i am mostly able to watch these without any preconceptions to cloud my appreciation. i saw tokyo story after the briefest of introductions and was able to marvel at and love the thing. i’d never heard of OZU before and since seen many and am the richer for them!
David, thanks for the info on Laughton- i had my suspicions the story might have been exaggerated, though in Mizo’s case i have a feeling the source may have been more authoritative, i can’t remember where i read it or if Yoda mentions this (which is not to say he was tyrannical with the kids playing Anyu and Zushio as he often was otherwise). I would need to see Record of a Tenement Gentleman again as i found it among the less memorable ones i’ve seen. I’m a bit less keen on some of his late colour films, such as Late Autumn and Equinox Flower, though End of Summer is an exception. I guess if there’s one criticism that could be made, it’s that in his late career he was still making variations on a theme, even remakes, which for all the shades, depth and variety he achieved within his speciality, his comfort zone, occasionally feel less fresh. I could also do with catching up with many of his silents.
Ha, i see Jason has End of Summer as his lowest-ranked Ozu! Well, it’s all a matter of taste. Like Col.Dax i admire Ozu’s generally non-judgmental approach. In terms of any generational bias, the father’s failings in Tokyo Twilight offset the most crabby reception the old couple get in Tokyo Story; Ozu certainly tried to be fair to different views and age-groups, as interested in and warm with children as the older generation. His focus on family may make him seem a Conservative, but left-wingers have families too, and are hardly indifferent to such matters.
Is he conservative or a social liberal? I take him primarily as an observer. At times I think his bias may be in favor of the youger generation but that ebbs and flows.
I’d like to give a pitch for “Good Morning”, probably his least loved film. I enjoy the door to door salesmen that visit the family throughout the early portion of the film peddling various inexpensive household needs while the family is gearing up for Japan’s great economic leap and eventually buys a television. The old door to door salesman has stopped coming buy and the up to date family’s dynamics and problems haven’t really changed.
It’s not a masterpiece by any means but it puts a comic edge his deconstruction of family and it deserves a look.
There’s a ton of Ozu available for next to nothing on e-bay.
Feel free to write me. Colonel Dax.
I would like to add, with respect to Tokyo Story, how influential it is. Doris Dorie’s latest film, Cherry Blossoms (Hanami) is clearly (and she acknowledges this) influenced, inspired even, by Tokyo Story, but very much the story of the next generation, and a beautiful, compassionate film. I think Kore-eda’s Still Walking is also influenced by it. Tokyo Story is like a jazz standard, that the following generations’ talented artists visit and build on with their own voices. Ozu is one of the three ‘angels’ Wenders dedicated Wings of Desire to; and then there’s Cafe Lumiere, a beautiful story. It’s a core film.
I’ve not yet seen Kore-eda’s Still Walking but his exquisite feature debut Maborosi certainly reminds of Ozu (as does Hou Hsiao-hsien). i think the influence of Tokyo Story is even apparent in a classic Wenders road movie Alice in the Cities.
I agree with Kenji, Wim Wenders Road Movies are the most clear example in many ways of the influence of Ozu.
I have seen all films by Ozu which have survived as prints. As much as I apreciate Tokyo Story as a masterpiece, Ozu made at least a dozen of it. Like all great directors who worked for several decades, his work is full of changes aand experiments. As glad as I am that more and more younger japanese and non-japanese filmmaker discover Ozu as what he was – a prophet of modern cinema- the most important thing is he introduced to the west the most successful realism movement, the shomingeki film to western people. As much I adore his late work with some films you can call perfect, his films from the 30s where the shomingeki film (films which focuse on everyday life) was born. 10 years before the neorealsm films like THE ONLY SON or AN INN IN TOKYO are still until today the finest films on exploitation of hman work in the industrial age. A WOMAN FROM TOKYO in its modernity about relations betweeen genders is unbelievable for a film in the 30s.
At all, I think with films by Ozu or Ford, you leaarn everything about cinema.
Jay Leighty
Finally watched this one and I’m compelled now to watch some other Ozu films. At first I found the film so ploddingly paced that I wondered how it could ever live up to it’s lofty reputation but after awhile it felt less like I was observing the characters and more like I was sharing space with them. Noriko (the virtuous step-daughter) is one of my favorite characters in all of cinema. I felt like she could walk right off of the screen and I didn’t want her story to end. Any other thoughts on the film and any reccomendations for which Ozu to check out next?