Tag: Ozu

Late Spring (1949)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 48min

The cycles of life in Yasujirō Ozu’s domestic dramas are as natural as seasonal changes, and just as inevitable. Parents grow old, children move out of home, and their youthful innocence matures into a worldly wisdom which guides them into new experiences. This is the transitory period that he represents in the title Late Spring, where the youth of 27-year-old Noriko comes to an end, though Chishū Ryū’s gently spoken widower Shukichi is not the obstacle to his daughter’s inevitable departure. As Noriko holds tight to her ageing father, it is rather her reservations about marriage which create friction in their household, pensively reflecting the evolving responsibilities of mid-century Japanese women in their families and society at large.

Setsuko Hara is radiant here in her first of many fruitful collaborations with Ozu, becoming the emotional centre around which his mise-en-scène and narrative layers delicately form. Her perpetual, beaming smile draws our focus in wide and mid-shots alike, and even continues through her savage digs at the remarriage of her father’s friend Onodera, somewhat amusingly labelling the act “filthy” and “indecent” without so much as a scowl crossing her face.

Even outside his perfectly arranged interiors, Ozu keeps his eye for framing with exterior modern architecture.

From Noriko’s perspective, building a new life outside of her current home would be a selfish act, with even the mere thought threatening to undermine the security she finds in caring for her father. As far as she is concerned, “Marriage is life’s graveyard” – or at least, those are the words her divorced friend Aya puts in her mouth. The moment that Aunt Masa starts pushing her strongly in this direction by suggesting that her father is planning to remarry their widowed neighbour Mrs. Miwa, Hara’s magnetic smile is wiped from her face, and it is quite some time before we see it return.

When she’s smiling, it’s impossible to imagine Hara’s face with any other expression, and then there is a marked shift in her demeanour upon discovering her father’s plans to remarry. This shot mirrors nicely with the shot in the final scene with Ryū in a strikingly similar position.

Indeed, Ozu’s thoughtful blocking of Noriko in his open doorways, corridors, and shoji screens essentially constructs a protective shell around her, connecting the young woman to the monotonous minutia of her family home. He designs his compositions through parallel and transversal lines, geometrically splitting the frame into segments that give structure to the organic, and beauty to the mundane. Here, he develops a formally rigorous aesthetic which would extend to the end of his career, representing every book, chair, and hanging garment as an extension of his characters.

Ozu segmenting the frame through these vertical lines.
There is also of course a depth of field to Ozu’s staging as well, containing characters within their frames, and returning to the hanging laundry here as a consistent visual presence.

Through Ozu’s consistently low angles too, there is also an extraordinary humility baked into this perspective. The seconds before an actor enters a room and after they exit are spent in quiet reflection, finding traces of life that exist beyond drama, and embodying their gentle presence by what remains behind – a pair of sitting cushions, a coat hanging on a rack, and a hat resting on a briefcase for instance, collectively break up the living room’s harsh angles with hints of humanity. When Noriko cycles with her engaged friend Hattori, this pattern continues in his framing of their parallel bikes, parked in the foreground while mirroring their tender pairing in the distance. There may not be any romance shared between them, yet this does not devalue their connection in Ozu’s eyes, earning the greatest honour he could bestow upon any relationship – a beautiful, elegant composition.

Ozu is a master of mise-en-scène, but his talent doesn’t announce itself loudly. There is precision in the placement of each cushion, coat, and hat, leaving traces of characters around the scene even when they aren’t present.
Parallel bikes parked in the foreground mirroring the friends in the background – human connection represented through the scenery.

At its most enigmatic, Ozu’s dedication to still life artistry stirs something deep and inexplicable in our souls too, mystifying generations of film scholars who would pick apart the meaning of a simple vase. This shot in question is specifically a cutaway during Noriko and her father’s overnight stay in an inn, wedged between two close-ups of the young woman’s face as she silently comes to terms with their inevitable separation. Given that Noriko’s eyeline is aimed towards the ceiling, it is notably not a point-of-view shot, so we are left to surmise that the perspective we are being given is solely Ozu’s. In this context, perhaps what the vase symbolises is less important than its formal function, acting like a comma halfway through a sentence. As such, the cutaway emphasises the crucial difference between the pair of close-ups it separates – that bright, radiant smile, completely disappeared when we return a few seconds later.

The infamous, enigmatic vase cutaway. So much has been written on its meaning, though formally it fits effortlessly into the pacing and flow of the scene.

No words are needed to express the insecurity that Noriko feels around the prospect of her father remarrying, especially with Ozu using the backdrop of a Noh performance to underscore their exchanged glances across the audience with Mrs. Miwa. His editing is in tune with her distracted mind, following her father’s lead with a friendly nod and smile to their neighbour, before her expression drops into sullen sorrow. “The iris hedge planted next to our old home, only the colour remains as it was back then,” the Noh singers drone in long, slow verses, wistfully reflecting on that ephemeral past which slips from Noriko’s grasp and is replaced by a newfound wisdom. “All the earth will be enlightened, even the flowers and the trees,” they conclude as Ozu cuts to a low angle of tree branches spreading out across the sky, connecting her spiritual journey to the very earth itself.

A silent interaction unfolds among audience members of this Noh play, following Noriko’s distracted mind through the editing.
Melding visuals with the lyrics sung onstage, reflecting Noriko’s story in the music and the earth.

Nevertheless, Ozu’s Japan remains a land of quiet conflict between nature and civilisation. As we watch his transient pillow shots unfold, we often question if these ancient pagodas, commercial train lines, and modern interiors stand alone as observances of an evolving post-war society, or whether they are functional establishing shots announcing the location of the next scene. We are effectively led to consider both with equal significance, sensitising us to the intricacies of Noriko’s world that boldly strives for the future, yet which paradoxically holds onto its nostalgic heritage. It is consequently easy to empathise with both sides of Late Spring’s core conflict, though as Noriko finds herself falling for the man she has been set up with, Ozu’s visual harmonies develop a strange, distinctive melancholy.

Pagodas, train lines, domestic interiors – Ozu’s pillow shots do an immense amount of work laying out the coexistence of tradition and modernity.

The pillow shots step up in frequency here, floating along lyrical meditations of the fate that has befallen this engaged woman, and the lonely father who now mourns the void left in his home – not that he would ever let that show. The notion that he would be remarrying was merely a lie he constructed to nudge her along without feelings of guilt, and now as her bittersweet departure arrives, he gifts her his own words of wisdom.

“Happiness isn’t something you wait around for. It’s something you create yourself. Getting married isn’t happiness. Happiness lies in the forging of a new life shared together. It may take a year or two, maybe even five or ten. Happiness comes only through effort. Only then can you claim to be man and wife.”

Late Spring settles on a strange melancholy in its final minutes, returning to an iconic Ozu shot though now with a darkened frame.

Sitting alone in his darkened home, he slowly peels an apple, recognising that Noriko’s happiness is no longer his to hold onto. Chishu Ryū doesn’t need words to express such incredible sorrow either as he bows his head in resignation, gracefully submitting to those cycles of nature which Ozu manifests in one last cutaway to rolling waves upon a beach. With such thoughtful editing and curated imagery guiding Late Spring’s lyrical rhythms forward, there is both profound joy and sadness to be found in this father-daughter love – dominant for the years of one’s youth, though poignantly lacking the longevity of romantic, lifelong matrimony.

Ending with the powerful image of Ryū peeling the apple, delivering a poignant silent performance as he is left alone.
An open-ended, cyclical return the natural world in the final shot, rolling waves across the shoreline.

Late Spring is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

A Hen in the Wind (1948)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 24min

Looming large over the rundown homes of Tokiko’s village in Tokyo, an immense, round monolith of metal beams dominates the skyline. Unlike the smokestacks and factories which dot these urban outskirts, its purpose remains unclear – perhaps it is scaffolding for some postwar reconstruction, or maybe it is an abandoned industrial project. As far as Yasujirō Ozu is concerned, its function is not as important as the immense symbol of oppression it imposes upon those living in its shadow. It may fade into the background at times, blurred through his shallow focus, but it never disappears entirely from view. Even when Tokiko carries her ailing infant son Hiroshi through town streets, there it is right behind her, rising up in a low angle tracking shot as she desperately seeks help.

The year that neorealism peaked in Italy, Ozu was centring this hulking, industrial structure in his own examination of postwar poverty and its debilitation of the marginalised working class. There was no time to sit and mourn the great losses that were suffered from World War II – society simply needed to move on, leaving behind women like Tokiko whose enlisted husbands had not yet returned from war. Options are consequently limited for Tokiko, and as A Hen in the Wind sees her driven into a dire corner with rising inflation, Ozu offers nothing but incredible sympathy for the unfathomable choices she must make in extreme circumstances.

Ozu’s opening pillow shots introduce us to the giant, metal monolith that looms over this rundown town, using architecture as a statement of oppression and industrial progress.
Every sacrifice made in A Hen in the Wind is for the sake of the younger generations, hoping and striving for a better future.

“There’s an easier way for her to live,” Tokiko’s neighbour Orie slyly suggests one day, indirectly planting the idea of prostitution to pay for Hiroshi’s exorbitant hospital bills. It is telling that Ozu lines the bottom of the frame here with empty sake bottles, underscoring another set of struggles altogether within Orie’s home. She may be a minor character, but she is fully detailed in her short screen time, hinting at the nihilism which may similarly consume Tokiko in her reluctant turn to sex work. Hiroshi is all that matters, and as she examines her tired expression in the mirror, Ozu sombrely cuts between her face and its reflection. She knows what must be done, and in compromising moral dignity for an abiding love of her son, Kinuyo Tanaka’s performance manifests a tragic, pitiful sorrow.

Character neatly established through mise-en-scène, lining the bottom of the frame with bottles of sake.
Kinuyo Tanaka was one of Japan’s greatest actresses in the 1940s, yet she only collaborated with Ozu twice, particularly standing out here in this mirror shot. As we cut between her face and her reflection, we see her silently recognise the tragic sacrifice that must be made for her son.

Of course, Ozu would never be so explicit as to reveal Tokiko at her most compromised. A string of pillow shots transition into the shady local establishment where prostitutes meet their clients, settling on smoking ash trays, futons, and low-lit corridors, before meeting a group of patrons and staff playing mahjong. Their brief conversation fills in the gaps, revealing that Tokiko decided to only spend a single night working at this brothel, before Ozu poetically bookends the scene with identical pillow shots in reverse order.

Even with hard-hitting subject matter, Ozu chooses carefully what to keep offscreen, instead using pillow shots to reveal the dark, empty rooms of the local brothel.
Always present, and captured from endlessly refreshing angles. Ozu works wonders with this bizarre, alien structure all through the film.

Tokiko’s plea for her friend’s understanding cuts right to the heart of this undignifying dilemma, and through Ozu’s front-on camera placement, it virtually resonates as a plea to the viewer as well.

“If you were a woman with no money and your child got sick, what would you do? Where would you get the money for the hospital? What else can a woman do?”

The wait for her husband Shuichi’s return from war is made all the more agonising for this betrayal, overwhelming her with guilt as she speaks to his framed photo. Still, the shame felt upon his actual arrival may be even worse. From here, Ozu follows Shuichi’s tormented search for answers to his wife’s infidelity, hoping to find within himself the ability to forgive her. Visiting the brothel where she worked, he begins by finding some sympathy for a young prostitute whose elderly father and school-age brother financially rely upon her. With their conversation set against a view of distant cargo ships and industrial bridges, we are reminded of the harsh realities that consume these unlikely companions, yet which ultimately grants them a mutual understanding of each other’s difficult circumstances.

More than anything else in this era of Japanese society, shame and betrayal threatens the very foundation of Tokiko and Shuichi’s marriage.
Shuichi’s innocent bonding with a young prostitute is set against an industrial harbour, displaying the common circumstances that impact these vastly different characters.

The scraps of junk metal which dot this lookout not only serve to further underscore these poor conditions, but also become the subject of Ozu’s recurring pillow shots, handsomely framing backgrounds through hollow, rusted barrels. At a certain point, they even draw Shuichi’s focus as he wanders alone, pensively considering society’s abandoned litter alongside his own personal problems. A Hen in the Wind moves with him along this meditative journey, giving him that familiar low angle tracking shot which previously captured his wife and child against the monolith, and building out underlying formal patterns which echo particularly strongly at its climax.

Ozu brings incredible structure to his compositions, using metal pieces of junk to frame the background and reveal society’s postwar pollution.
Great formal strength in this pair of low angle tracking shots, alternately attached to Tokiko and Shuichi, and using the harsh local architecture as backdrops.

The initial setup arrives in a confrontation between the two when his heated questions completely shut her down. Frustrated by her refusal to speak, he throws a can down the stairs in a fit of anger, and Ozu momentarily departs from the scene with a cutaway to the ground floor where it eventually stops. Taken alone, this fleeting pause lets us grasp the pain which quietly lingers in the wake of Tokiko and Shuichi’s altercation, though its return in an even greater outburst also reveals it to be an accomplished piece of foreshadowing. As Tokiko ashamedly clings to him with profuse apologies, she is met with a callous shove that incidentally sends her tumbling down the stairs – and Ozu does not miss the chance to recall the exact same shot from earlier. In the silence which follows, she lies motionless in the same spot where the can once rested, crumpled and dehumanised by the comparison. Ozu very rarely uses physical violence in his films, but when he does it evidently carries the power to shatter entire worlds, fracturing the foundations of his characters’ humble lives.

One of Ozu’s finest moments as a formalist, lingering on this can falling down the stairs…
…and later revealing it to be a smart piece of foreshadowing as Tokiko suffers the same fate.

Yet somehow, even at Tokiko and Shuichi’s lowest, Ozu does not lose faith in the redemption of their souls. It takes a forced confrontation with the impact of his own behaviour for Shuichi to recognise where this cycle of resentment must end, and where healing between husband and wife must begin, putting each other’s transgressions behind them. Just as Japan must rebuild after the war, so too shall these aggrieved lovers piece together the remnants of their once-happy lives, finding whatever joy can survive beneath the shadow of that featureless monolith. There in the closing shots, children harmoniously play at its feet, and for the first time A Hen in the Wind reveals a fragile renewal lifting the historical weight of sacrifice, shame, and an entire generation’s moral compromise.

Children play in the shadow of the monolith, bringing life and joy to an otherwise sombre setting.

A Hen in the Wind is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 12min

Whether they were abandoned, lost, or orphaned, young children were among the most impacted civilians of wartime Japan, making seven-year-old Kōhei one of many stranded without parents in Record of a Tenement Gentleman. Every survivor is dealing with their own struggles though, so when O-tane’s neighbour picks him up off the street, the question arises – why must this middle-aged widow be the one to take him in? If you ask her, it is because her friends agreed to randomly select who should be his carer, and she unfortunately drew the lot with an X on it. If you ask Tashiro or Tamekichi, the game was rigged so that all the lots were marked with an X, and she simply revealed hers first. To Yasujirō Ozu though, there is a maternal warmth beneath her spiky exterior that she might refuse to acknowledge, yet which predisposes her to the enormous responsibility of raising Kōhei.

Record of a Tenement Gentleman may be the closest this director of domestic dramas ever got to shooting a war film, rejecting the spectacle of battle for the quiet struggles of those whose homes were torn apart by bloodshed. Death and violence takes place entirely offscreen, never clarifying what led to the demise of O-tane’s husband, and only relaying the backstory of Kōhei’s bombed-out home through a neighbour’s brief exposition. The child’s father left for Japan to find work, we learn, and at some point along the way they were separated.“Your dad’s cold-hearted,” O-tane cynically reasons as they share food together atop a dune, overlooking a breezy, grey ocean.

“You didn’t get lost. You got abandoned.”

Grey skies and oceans form the negative space upon which O’tane and Kōhei’s figures are imprinted, bleakly looking out at the horizon as this middle-aged woman breaks the tragic news to the boy.

Perhaps this is her lack of faith in humanity speaking, or maybe it is her own justification to keep him by her side – not that she is terribly well-equipped as a mother. He is little more than a nuisance to her, earning her ire for failing to win a lottery draw, and repeatedly wetting his bed. Ozu’s storytelling through pillow shots is strong here, not only using his characteristic laundry montages to transition between scenes, but also frequently returning to the wet patch on his hanging sheets to reveal the chronic nature of this issue.

Unusually for Ozu, the narrative progresses through his trademark laundry shots, returning to this hanging blanket to reveal the chronic nature of Kōhei’s bed-wetting.
Ozu patiently builds out postwar Tokyo’s rundown districts, composing long shots littered with junk and debris as O-tane navigates its streets.

Through its elegant union of style and character, what is largely underrated as a minor Ozu film displays graceful, minimalist sophistication, building out Tokyo’s rundown districts and the people that inhabit them. His path may have never crossed with the Italian neorealists of the time, but his ability to find tenderness in mundane suffering certainly aligns with theirs, compassionately studying behaviours as simple as O-tane’s discontented grinding of flour. Hanging kitchen utensils clutter the ceiling in her home too, pressing down from above in isolating wide shots as she smokes alone, and serving a similar purpose as the obstructions so often framed in the foreground.

O-tane’s state of mind is expressed through everyday motions, comparing her slow grinding of flour to the rapid, frustrating grinding later on.
Hanging tools and utensils from the kitchen ceiling, pressing down on O-tane from this isolating wide shot.

When Kōhei runs away one day out of fear of wetting the bed again, Ozu’s focus turns to the rundown streets of O-tane’s neighbourhood, joining her silent, uneasy search for this regretfully mistreated child. There, he lingers on street litter as it is lightly tousled by the breeze, as equally disregarded as those young children who pass their days fishing from the bridge. Their featured presence in cutaways all throughout Record of a Tenement Gentleman is impactful – they live on the periphery of society, yet they are crucial to Ozu’s portrait of innocence in mid-century Japan, particularly centring Kōhei as a generational symbol of resilience.

A very fine montage as O-tane searches for a missing Kōhei, as Ozu cycles through shots set up earlier in the film.
The theme of society’s forgotten children echo poignantly through the scene, ending in this shot of litter blowing in the wind – sharp parallels drawn through imagery.

Upon this child’s safe return home, we see something shift in O-tane, lovingly spoiling him with a day trip to the zoo. “I’ve never felt like this before. Motherly love?” she wonders aloud to her friend, who humorously jabs back that she is more like a grandmother. For all the severity of these characters’ circumstances, Ozu maintains a gentle humour and levity in their interactions, making the unexpected arrival of Kōhei’s father to take him home all the more bittersweet.

Warmth and joy emerge in this surrogate mother-son dynamic, cracking O-tane’s stone heart and providing Kōhei a source of stability.
Ozu knows how to design a frame at this point his career, imbuing the scenery with hypnotic, repetitive motions.

No longer does O-tane find the same satisfaction in her solitude as she did before, and in Kōhei’s absence, the world again becomes a cold and lonely place. Ozu would later refine the conclusion of his character arcs, delivering emotional gut punches in a single, devastating composition rather than a monologue as he does here with O-tane’s explicit moralising, speaking to the life-changing marvel of children. It is fortunate indeed then that Record of a Tenement Gentleman does not give her the final say, but rather returns to the children of Tokyo, this time playing in Ueno Park where she plans to adopt one. There, a statue of Takamori Saigō watches over them like a vigilant protector, connecting this dark period of Japanese history back to one of its greatest icons of honour. O-tane may not strike nearly impressive a figure as this noble samurai, yet as her broken nation emerges from the darkness of war, so too does she embrace a quiet, compassionate heroism of her own.

O-tane’s world is once again a dark and lonely place to be, sinking her into shadows when Kōhei is taken back home.
Takamori Saigō – a symbolic, silent protector of Japan’s children, who smoke, talk, and play at his feet in the film’s closing pillow shots.

Record of a Tenement Gentleman is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

There Was a Father (1942)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 43min

The emotional bond between Shuhei and his son Ryohei may be strong in There Was a Father, yet there is a wistful sorrow in the past tense of this title which suggests the memory of some earlier, tragic loss. That patriarchal title of honour is one Shuhei struggles to lay claim to after failing in his duty as a teacher, inadvertently letting one student drown during an excursion under his supervision. In his eyes, a father is a role model, an educator, and a protector, so a man who cannot fulfil his most basic duty for any child in their care has no business looking after them.

Shuhei’s grief reverberates far beyond his resignation though, sending Ryohei to a boarding school and thereby placing a physical distance between them. He may never truly stop being a father, and Yasujirō Ozu even recognises the undeniable harmony of this relationship through the recurring shot of their fishing lines being cast in perfect unison, yet Chishū Ryū’s performance nevertheless resonates a stoic self-pity for his negligence. Guilt requires atonement, and atonement is a duty to be undertaken in meditative isolation. Having lost his wife some years ago too, Shuhei’s one shot at redemption now seems to be through the professional success of his only living family member.

Ozu illustrates harmony across generations through the simple motion of fishing lines cast in unison, mirrored between father and son.
A beautifully devastating detail – setting up the neat row of umbrellas, and then knocking one down as students rush out to learn of their drowned classmate.

Prior to the instigating tragedy, Ozu is meticulous in setting up Shuhei’s ordered, untroubled world. Symmetrical rows of students impeccably frame their teacher in the classroom, and even when they leave for a lakeside retreat, static pillow shots linger on their perfectly aligned umbrellas resting against a wall. Nevertheless, the peace is soon disturbed by the news of one boy’s boat capsizing, and the toppling of a single umbrella in the subsequent rush makes for a devastatingly symbolic detail. Before reaching the overturned rowboat though, Ozu neatly inserts a single cutaway to a nearby stone pillar, as if to punctuate the disaster with a reflective, melancholy sigh.

Ozu resists the sensational and grotesque, letting the death of this student sink in through pillow shots that show everything but his body.

Even amid dire misfortune, chaos is simply not part of Ozu’s cinematic language, and There Was a Father especially asserts his proclivity for ritualistic repetition to smooth over emotional disruptions. When Shuhei breaks the news to Ryohei while fishing that he will be sent to a boarding school, the scene is bookended by two shots of another stone pillar near the river, and when this young boy eventually grows up, another pattern is established as he follows in his father’s occupational footsteps. “Your duty is to study hard,” this young teacher advises one homesick student, echoing the ethos he was raised with, though his dedicated diligence does not come at the expense of long-distance visits to his father in Tokyo.

Ozu uses this stone pillar as a sort of bookmark to his scene, turning cutaways into visual punctuation bridging one moment in time to the next.
Further mirroring between Shuhei and his son – both taking the role of teachers, and appearing almost identical in their suits and ties.
Wayward students perched atop stone pillars like crows, letting time drift away.

Shuhei and Ryohei’s reunion dominates the second half of There Was a Father, frequently leaning into wide shots of the two relaxing in carefully composed interiors. Within the grand view of Ozu’s career, this is where his thorough layering of shots through shoji doors begins, capturing frames within frames which draw our eyes to characters in their domestic habitats. Here he continues to quietly underscore the parallels between generations of men, beginning one scene with Ryohei smoking on his own, joining them together in a discussion of marriage prospects, before ending with an almost identical shot of a lone Shuhei taking his son’s position.

Ozu relishes the reunion between Shuhei and Ryohei, returning to this fishing motif which carries across years in their lives.
Again, astounding parallels drawn in the framing, bookending a scene by isolating both in identical shots.

Loneliness is inevitable in any relationship strained by distance though – in this instance, giving way to a tension which arises over Ryohei’s desire to quit his job and move closer to his father. “Do your duty for both of us,” Shuhei demands, longing for Ryohei to become the teacher he believes he never could be, and revealing how profoundly his past failure still weighs on his parental expectations.

It is also during Ryohei’s trip to Tokyo though that Shuhei finds companionship in an even more unlikely reunion, organised by his now-grown students. It has been a decade since their graduation, and while their teacher has spent the interim living in reclusive guilt, they have held onto nothing but positive memories of his mentorship. He continues to visit the deceased student’s grave out of a sense of remorse, he tells them, but is evident that his impact on their lives far outweighs this single tragedy. Through the low perspective of Ozu’s tatami shots, we become part of the seated celebration too, observing how its demonstration of enduring appreciation begins to heal the ex-teacher’s wounded soul.

Healing through reminiscence, celebration, and Ozu’s tatami shots, giving Shuhei the closure he needs from old students whose fond memories far outweigh any consideration of his failures.

If Shuhei’s guilt was keeping him clinging to a lonely life of penitence, perhaps this is just the closure he needed to finally escape it once and for all. Growing disorientated and weak, he collapses one morning as he gets ready to leave for work, struck by a heart attack. Ozu once again uses a cutaway to pause before we move to the hospital, this time meditatively lingering on an array of flowerpots, a clothing horse, and a watering can sitting in the garden, each item never to be touched by Shuhei again. Ozu creates a sort of temporal negative space in moments like these, not quite part of one scene or the next, but rather offering a soothing transition to prepare us for significant changes in the lives of his characters.

The stray garden items of Shuhei’s home, left exactly where he last put them down – his absence is painfully felt in this pillow shot.

Lining the corridor outside Shuhei’s hospital room, his past students gather, honouring the man who became a father to each of them. “It’s nothing to be sad about. I did the very best I could,” he mumbles with his dying breath, finally finding forgiveness within himself. As for Ryohei, this final week spent together was the happiest of his life, he admits, having always wanted to live with his father since being sent away to boarding school. This is a man who died with his dignity intact, and the teary crowd which gathers around his deathbed in the final minutes of There Was a Father pays thankful testament to that, recognising a remarkable, resilient legacy which transcended the grief etched deep in his soul.

Students gather round the deathbed of their old teacher, mourning and commemorating a life which touched far more people than Shuhei ever realised.

There Was a Father is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 46min

When the rock at the centre of the Toda family is lost, there is little that remains to hold its fragments together – though the enthusiastic attendance of Shintarō’s 69th birthday celebrations might originally suggest otherwise. Surely his children would loyally support each other after his passing, and they would certainly never try to palm off their now-homeless mother and youngest sister Setsuko, effectively washing their hands of responsibility. For those who comfortably belong to Japan’s upper-class though, family ties are diminished by their lack of interdependence, and Yasujirō Ozu’s filmic foray into the stratosphere of the elite exposes the true weakness in their relationships.

With his focus shifting away from society’s disenfranchised, the personal conflicts in Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family stem more apathy than the insecurity of Ozu’s previous characters, marking a notable departure from the industrial wastelands of The Only Son or the provincial streets of A Story of Floating Weeds. Perhaps this break from rundown locations is partly why its visuals are a little more muted, but it’s tough to criticise his mise-en-scène too much when it still bears the markings of his carefully set interiors. Here, patterned wallpaper forms delicate frames around doorways, while abundant flowers densely crowd out compositions at Shintarō’s funeral, commemorating his life through immoderate displays of wealth.

It is at Shintarō’s birthday party though where we get our first taste of this family’s decay, revealed in pillow shots which follow his initial collapse and move into an empty doctor’s office. There, a grandfather clock rhythmically swings its pendulum with the repetitive, ringing telephone, marking the first of several instances that Ozu calls upon this symbol of time and mortality – not that the Toda children necessarily consider the weight that either bear on their lives. Apparently the cultural tradition of honouring one’s elders only applies to the underprivileged who continue to lean on them, and even after being wracked by Shintarō’s post-mortem debts, still these siblings dedicate the bare minimum to looking after their mother.

When Mrs. Toda and Setsuko move in with the eldest brother Shin’ichiro, disharmony finds fertile ground, eventually sprouting into a confrontation between his wife Kazuko and Setsuko. Quarrels in Ozu films are rarely impassioned, yet resentment simmers in glacial accusations, beginning with Setsuk’s simple request that Kazuko avoid playing piano while she and her mother are sleeping. Kazuko is seemingly happy to oblige, but not without questioning why they didn’t greet the guest they had earlier that day, openly laying out her disdain for all to see.

Perhaps then peace will be found living with the eldest sister Chizuko, but when Setsuko expresses her desire to get a job, she is chastised for even considering the disgraceful notion of joining the working class. Elsewhere in this household, Chizuko’s resistance to disciplining her rebellious son sparks a clash with her mother, and ends in Chizuko sharing perhaps the harshest words of the film.

“Just stay away from my son.”

With this arrangement failing as well, Ayako is next to reluctantly offer her home, so she is relieved indeed when a frustrated Mrs. Toda resolves instead to reside in the family’s only remaining property – a rundown house by the sea. If there is any redemption to be found among the Toda siblings, then it is through the final sibling Shōjirō, whose move to China shortly after his father’s death has largely insulated him from these affairs. Upon his return for the one-year anniversary of Shintarō’s passing, he effectively becomes Ozu’s mouthpiece, scolding each of his siblings for neglecting their gracious mother. His home in China is not ideal given its distance, but it is nevertheless a safe place for his mother to relax and Setsuko to find work, free from judgement.

Rarely does Ozu take so firm a stance on the tension between tradition and modernity as he does in Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family. Shin’ichiro, Chizuko, and Ayako may not be villains, but the shallowness with which they approach their personal responsibilities brands them hypocrites in his eyes, holding the foundations of their privilege in little esteem. Prosperity is evidently not the measure of family bonds in this cutting class critique. Through grief and adversity, the hollowness of their affluence is laid bare, and reverent devotion for one’s roots holds on by a single, resilient thread.

Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The Only Son (1936)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 27min

The Tokyo that Ryōsuke inhabits is not quite the bustling metropolis that his mother O-Tsune envisioned. His neighbourhood is a desolate wasteland of processing plants and garbage incinerators, raising chimneys high up above landscapes and imposing its industrial architecture upon locals. In fact, it isn’t terribly different from his rural hometown Shinshū, where O-Tsune worked hard for many years to send him to school and where she still toils away in her old age. Yasujirō Ozu regards the prospect of elevating one’s status through education with great cynicism in The Only Son, and given that the Great Depression was ravaging Japan’s working class at the time, it isn’t hard to see why.

This is not to say that the destitute poverty Ozu’s characters live in lacks his typical aestheticism. His trademark pillow shots introduce us to Shinshū by way of oil lamps hanging in front of street views, and when we arrive at O-Tsune’s silk production factory, rows of spinning wheels whirl in smooth, geometric harmony. Humility begets selflessness in this quiet town, constantly grinding away to build a future for the younger generation in the naive hope that they will be granted greater privileges. After displaying immense talent in crafting the meditative melodrama of A Story of Floating Weeds, this tale of parental expectations and disappointments confirms Ozu cinematic genius, underscoring the social realities of 1930s Japan through the muted, disillusioning tension between generations.

A delicate obstruction of the frame using this hanging oil lamp, setting the scene for O-Tsune’s quiet village.
Rows of spinning wheels whirl in smooth, geometric harmony – O-Tsune’s livelihood is built on the ceaseless momentum of these machines.
A mother’s hopefulness and her son’s ambition feed into each other, unaware of the real world troubles which stand in the way of success.

Adding to O-Tsune’s weight of responsibility as well is her single motherhood, having been widowed shortly after Ryōsuke’s birth. Sending him to school placed a huge financial burden on her, yet thanks to advice from his elementary school teacher Ōkubo, it also seemed to guarantee him a comfortable life. When she finally visits him in Tokyo as an adult then, not only is she shocked to find that he has taken up work as a lowly night school teacher to support a wife and child, but that the once-respected Ōkubo has similarly taken a step down the social ladder and become a restaurant owner.

Ozu keeps his camera low in this shot, funnelling the classroom desks towards the front where Ryōsuke commands the students.
Continuity in Ozu’s pillow shots, following his characters through the outskirts of Tokyo and exposing its dilapidation.
Ozu loves applying visual patterns to his compositions, here mirroring his upright characters in the smokestacks lining the background, and choosing this as the setting for their cynical confrontation with reality.

As O-Tsune and Ryōsuke sit and talk in view of Tokyo’s towering smokestacks, he is the first to admit that this was not the life he was expecting for himself. The city is simply too competitive, and he feels terrible for all his mother’s sacrifices, yet she initially remains hopeful. His life is only beginning after all, and she claims her only disappointment is in his readiness to give up – though later that evening, it becomes apparent that her regret is far more deep-seated. As Ryōsuke stands wistfully at the window of his classroom, gazing at the blinking city lights, Ozu’s mellow editing interlaces the scene with O-Tsune’s reflective, downcast expression back home. A narrow doorway confines both of them to a narrow frame as they finally meet and continue their discussion, though this time they are unable to reach as convenient a resolution.

Mother and son in separate locations, yet Ozu’s editing binds them together in disappointment, alternating between these lonely shots.
An extremely narrow frame even by Ozu’s standards, trapping O-Tsune and Ryōsuke in their shared, unresolvable tension.

“I worked hard because I wanted you to succeed,” O-Tsune laments, before finally coming clean that she has sold their house and mulberry fields for his education. “You’re all I have now in the world.” Ozu’s characteristic low placement of his camera proves particularly powerful here, levelling with them as their resilient facades drop for the first time to bare their bitterness and guilt. From the next room over, Ryōsuke’s wife Sugiko weeps, before O-Tsune and Ryōsuke join in. From there, Ozu sits in the lingering melancholy as it spreads through the house, cutting to their sleeping baby and an empty room. Within the stasis, Ozu imbues remnants of their sorrow, echoing pained, muffled cries while the unconscious child remains innocently unaware.

Sorrow and melancholy echoes through the house in these pillow shots, with each subsequent shot moving further away from its source, until we find ourselves beginning the next day.
From folded to hanging laundry – Ozu finds a logical progression between shots, establishing the relaxed flow of time within and around his narrative.

In moments such as these, the precision of Ozu’s pacing and composition become piercingly clear, as his montage seamlessly transitions to the next morning through shots of folded and hanging laundry. His characters may be wounded, yet life goes on, leaving them to pick up the pieces and keep showing the sort of love they themselves need in return. There is no long-lasting resentment on Sugiko’s behalf, as she sells her kimono to take them all out while the weather is nice, and Ryōsuke is proves his altruism as well when he instead uses this money to generously pay for his neighbour’s hospital bills. Plenty may change with the passing generations, yet the benevolence which is passed from elders to children paves the way for a redemptive union of the two. Perhaps it is good her son never became rich, O-Tsune resolves, lest he should have lost that graciousness she raised him with.

With Ryōsuke finally deciding to take one more shot at getting a licence to teach high school, it seems that O-Tsune is able to return home to Shinshū with some closure, though Ozu is not one to let his family drama subside so neatly. The enormous smile she wears back at the factory is bolstered by the pride she openly expresses in her son, and convincingly hides the sadness which emerges when she is alone. As she rests for a moment on a ledge, her forehead creases with weary dejection, revealing the impermeable regret which cannot be quelled in her old age. This factory has been her entire life, and as Ozu’s conclusive pillow shots move towards its giant, steel gate keeping her in, it is apparent that it always will be. And for what, we are left to wonder? Is one life lived in poverty worth another that is only slightly better off? Like an ellipsis at the end of a sentence, The Only Son’s final montage suspends its characters in an unshakeable discontent, striving for a prosperous, hopeful future they quietly recognise may never arrive.

A heartbreaking ending, wiping the smile from O-Tsune’s face as she pauses in solitude. Ozu’s pillow shots drift farther from this weary mother and closer to the looming factory gates that seem to imprison her, quietly casting doubt on the idealistic faith society places in a lifetime of tireless, unending work.

The Only Son is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Woman of Tokyo (1933)

Yasujirō Ozu | 47 min

Secrets exist for good reason in Woman of Tokyo, maintaining the equilibrium which defines clear relationships between siblings, lovers, and colleagues. The first time Chikako encounters a threat to this balance though, it arrives in her office, where she has worked diligently for four years as a typist. The police presence is unexpected, as are their probing questions to her boss, asking for employment records and general opinions of her character. There is nothing to report there, the manager says. Her attendance has been impeccable, she is dedicated to her younger brother Ryoichi, and after hours she even helps a professor with his work.

At the mention of her extracurricular activity, the officer perks up, though it isn’t until later when rumours begin to spread that we find out why. Chikako works as a prostitute at a seedy bar, officer Kinoshita informs his sister Harue, who also happens to be dating Ryoichi. When this gossip eventually reaches his ears too, there is little that can hold back his destructive fury.

The fact that Woman of Tokyo lands among Yasujirō Ozu’s shorter films does not make it any less than a complete work, even if tends to skim the surface of its characters. Despite its brevity, this tragedy fully realises the melodrama of its premise, challenging the conservative cultural norms of the era represented in Ryoichi. Prostitution is so dishonourable that he initially refuses to believe the rumour, and impulsively breaks up with Harue for even entertaining its truth. “Anyone who disturbs our peaceful life is my enemy!” he imperatively declares, though the dialogue here comes off as forced to say the least.

Subtlety and suggestion are usually among Ozu’s most effective tools as a storyteller, so it is through his editing rather than his writing where these qualities flourish in Woman of Tokyo. His admiration of Ernst Lubitsch’s elegant ‘touch’ manifests directly in an early scene where Ryoichi and Harue watch If I Had a Million at the movie theatre, and it also takes cinematic form in the rhythms of his delicate montages, directing our focus to the domestic minutia of Chikako and Ryoichi’s house. The rotating cowl, chimney, and kettle become recurring visual motifs here, with the latter especially being used to illustrate steaming pressure and quiet tension between siblings. As Ryoichi’s thoughts darken with deeper consideration of Harue’s accusation, so too does the lighting dim, underscoring a brutal confrontation that ends with bitterness, heartbreak, and a regrettable slap.

Ryoichi’s sudden departure concerns both women, and for good reason. Still Ozu keeps track of that kettle, boiling with anticipation, and now the dripping water from hanging laundry joins in like a ticking second hand. When Harue takes the call to learn of her boyfriend’s fate, the clocks decorating the wall behind her build that steady rhythm to a chorus, counting down to irrevocable tragedy. He has taken his life, Kinoshita informs her over the phone, and Ozu’s cutaway to the shadow of a noose upon a wall tells us all we need to know.

Woman of Tokyo is not some ham-fisted moral lesson about honouring one’s family though, but rather dwells in Chikako’s mournful anger. “You had to die for this?” she laments over his body, tearfully calling out the futility of such an extreme response.

“You coward, Ryoichi.”

The epilogue which follows a pair of reporters into the street makes for a clumsy formal misstep, reframing Chikako’s grief within a capricious news cycle. For a young Ozu who was not yet at the top of his game though, such flaws are merely part of his awkward transition from genre films to humanistic dramas, where his graceful, restrained storytelling would soon blossom. Woman of Tokyo does not deliver the formal impact of his later masterpieces, yet there is nevertheless a precision in its dramatic tension and release, glimpsing the quiet devastation that lies beneath domestic stability.

Woman of Tokyo is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Tokyo Chorus (1931)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 30min

For many great artists, the act of creation comes as second nature, treated like a grand experiment to be dismantled and reconstructed in different forms. For Yasujirō Ozu, it is a practice of intense deliberation and refinement, stoking introspection by mindfully sharpening the tools of one’s craft. This is not to say that he lacks playfulness or humour – one only needs to look at his earliest films to see the influence of Hollywood’s silent comedies after all. Nevertheless, Tokyo Chorus marks a shift in his formal focus. Starting here, he sets off on a journey towards meticulous, cinematic perfection, directing pensive domestic dramas which would define Japanese cinema in decades to come.

Gone are the broad genre strokes which marked Ozu’s prior efforts. In their place, we find the subdued melodrama of a family man whose sudden unemployment tests his personal relationships and wears away at his lively spirit. As it so happens, that streak of wayward defiance has gotten Okajima in trouble ever since he was a student, previously exasperating his schoolteacher Mr. Omura and more recently getting him fired for aggressively defending a laid off colleague. Clearly he never quite learned to demonstrate tact in disagreement, and now as he faces up to the consequences of his insubordination, he must also grapple with the responsibility he holds as a husband and father.

Debuting four years after the advent of synchronised sound in Hollywood, Tokyo Chorus stands as a lingering remnant of the silent era, demonstrating some of Ozu’s finest visual storytelling at this point in his career. His trademark pillow shots aren’t quite fully formed yet, but the cutaway of rustling trees and a torii gate marks a soothing transition away from the prologue, while a montage of typewriters, half-eaten lunches, and empty shoes introduce Okajima’s office momentarily absent of workers.

Ozu’s tracking shots certainly bring a sense of order in their straight, unbending lines, but it is very much his editing which sensitively studies the details of these home and work environments, particularly following the hospitalisation of Okajima’s daughter. After selling his wife’s kimonos to pay the bills, their quarrel takes place almost entirely through silent gazes as they playing a clapping game with their children, underscoring the tension with whimsical levity. Actors Tokihiko Okada and Emiko Yagumo must be credited here too for the emotional journey of their facial expressions, bouncing his shame off her disappointment, before uniting in shared joy over their son and daughter. Having separated them in isolating mid-shots, Ozu finally cuts to a wide shot of the entire family playing together, bringing resolution through a moment of forgiveness and understanding.

On a broader level too, Ozu builds Tokyo Chorus around these small cuts to Okajima’s dignity, particularly demoralising him when he cannot afford a bike for his son. The job he finds carrying banners and handing out flyers for The Calorie Café does little to ease his insecurity as well, seeing him bristle at the pity of others, though there is a sweet poetry to the fact that he gets it from a random encounter with his old schoolteacher. Even after retiring and opening a restaurant in his senior years, Mr. Omura still hasn’t quite let go of his fatherly instincts, taking Okajima under his wing once again and promising to help him find work. Ozu allows room for some light comic touches here as Okajima finds himself reliving the days of his youth, obediently marching to the beat of Mr. Omura’s drum, yet still he can’t entirely stave off the creeping depression.

“I feel like I’m getting old. I’ve lost my spirit.”

There is a moral lesson to take from Tokyo Chorus, though Ozu does not deliver it with the overwrought sentimentality of his Hollywood counterparts. Mr. Omura’s gentle, reassuring presence rather stands as a delicate testament to those teachers who don’t just educate us, but become extensions of our families, guiding us with wisdom and purpose through our lowest moments. This tight bond especially reveals itself in Okajima’s class reunion at The Calorie Café, making for a satisfying bookend to Ozu’s narrative, and the job offer which our protagonist finally receives during this gathering makes the moment all the more rewarding.

Still, even amidst the celebration of Okajima’s new vocation as a teacher, there is a lingering sadness in the air as they realise that he must move away from Tokyo. Such is the nature of a student-mentor relationship after all, seeing both men inevitably part ways once the job is finished. Much like Okajima’s silent reconciliation with his wife from earlier though, Ozu again plays out another beautifully edited conversation through nothing but facial expressions, this time between the two men whose eyes sorrowfully drift to the ground while everyone joyfully sings around them. Noticing Mr. Omura’s doleful expression, Okajima offers him a wide, sympathetic grin, and graciously receives one in return. Families of all sorts heal wounded souls in Tokyo Chorus, and as Ozu sharpens his own cinematic skillset, his tender-hearted tribute to those who bring them together marks a moderate yet gratifying step forward.

Tokyo Chorus is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.