☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
The
Only Son (1936) – Y. Ozu
I suspect that I may be missing some of
the cultural nuances on which the plot of Ozu’s first sound picture
pivots. However, its broader strokes are
easy enough to read and their emotional effects are universally understood. Basically, a poor widow sacrifices everything
to ensure that her only son can get a good education. Later, when he is grown, she visits him in
Tokyo from her country village, discovering that he has a wife and child. Unhappy with his status in life (as a night
school teacher), the son hid these things from his mother so she wouldn’t visit
and discover this lack of success. As
with the later Ozu films we know so well, there are quiet moments interspersed
between scenes, showing “still life” shots or resting in the space after the
actors have departed – these serve to heighten the emotion just expressed or
allow us to reflect upon it. And there
is Chishu Ryu, much younger than you might remember him but with the same laugh
and easy manner, playing the son’s former teacher who has also encountered a
downward trajectory in his life. In
fact, Japan’s general trajectory may be downward in the 1930’s and this may be
one of Ozu’s points (a few references to Germany, though ambiguous, may also
represent editorial comments). In the
end, however, this is another story about parents and their adult children and
the fraught bonds that hold them together, for better or for worse, that Ozu
told so well.
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