The Tokyo that Ryōsuke moves to in The Only Son is not the bustling city of opportunity he once dreamed of, but a desolate wasteland of factories and smokestacks, underscoring Yasujirō Ozu’s tale of parental expectations and disappointments with the social realities of Depression-era Japan.
That wistful memories last far longer than the events they are born from is a painful paradox in A Day in the Country, but with a visual style and narrative pacing as elegant as Jean Renoir’s, it is fully possible to recognise the beauty of these moments as they pass us by, manifesting as scintillating portraits of an idyllic, rural France.
