During the month of November, I am focusing on film maker Yasujiro Ozu. I thought it now time to say a few words about his masterpiece (and one of my absolute favorite films) "Tokyo Story".I've seen "Tokyo Story" at least four times now, I've even read the screenplay, and still I am in awe of it. Every shot of this film is truth in it's purest form. It does everything the opposite of what you expect. The story centres on an elderly couple who make a trip to Tokyo to visit their children. Since Tokyo is such a far distance, the couple realize that this may be their last chance to see all of them together.
When they arrive, their children are not very hospitable, they seem more put out by their parent's visit than anything else. Nothing is ever said directly on this topic but is instead covered up mostly by polite conversation. The one person who does welcome the couple's visit is their former daughter-in-law Noriko. Noriko lives alone and unmarried since her husband (their son) was killed in the war. The children then find it convenient for them to dump their parents on Noriko who then takes them sight seeing and to visit her apartment.
When the children finally are out of ideas of what to do with them, they decide to spend the money to send them to a bathhouse, but the parents are not happy there since it is full of young people who are up late at night. Their visit is then cut short.
As I said before when I first saw this film I didn't enjoy it as much, I think because I was expecting something else, something a little more conventional. I wasn't used to the performing style of the actors, I found when some of them had to cry after the death of a certain character, it looked forced and not at all realistic. But now that I know a little bit more about Ozu's intent and after viewing many other films by him I think I know the reason for my initial reaction to the film. At no point was I asked to be a participant in the action, this is more of an observation of a family coming apart, but that doesn't mean you are not supposed to feel anything for them, it just means you're kept at a distance. I would almost describe it as looking through a window into someone else's life, we can see what's happening but the glass is keeping us out.
Ozu keeps us at a distance purposefully, and because of that we are able to see the whole picture. The thing I like about Ozu's films the most is how he is able to make us identify with each character, there is no black and white bad guy in his films. We feel for the elderly couple's situation, but on another level we don't blame the children for their decisions, they are all human in Ozu's eyes. The one person who speaks for both generations is Noriko. Near the end of the film, the one person who gave the couple any compassion can't help but feel that some day she will turn selfish, and unkind herself.
As I was reading the screenplay to "Tokyo Story", the introduction by Donald Richie he states that "Ozu restricted himself to elegiac theme: the dissolution of the Japanese family." This is why most of his films are considered to be very similar, he wasn't repeating himself, it was just that the theme remained consistent. The tragedy of "Tokyo Story" is a simple one and that from the beginning of the film we know the happiness this family had has changed through the distance between them, and by the end when another change occurs, their is an even bigger gap separating them. But being the philosophical film maker he is, Ozu looks upon this change as inevitable as the passage of time. Nothing can be changed, it is the way of things, and the fact that we look upon it with sadness is a beautiful thing, and reminds us that we are human.
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