Tokyo Story (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Tokyo Story (1953) – Y. Ozu

In revisiting Tokyo Story (named the third greatest film of all time by Sight and Sound in 2012), I find that perhaps it is not my favourite Ozu film, after all (potentially because it is somewhat atypical), despite it being a masterpiece.  Having seen so many Ozu films, I think I like their prototypic features which might not actually be present in all of his films.  Here, we do find the camera resting statically at a low angle, akin to a person sitting on a tatami mat, and yes, there are many shots of characters speaking directly to the camera that are not “matched” properly or paired with reaction shots.  There are also the occasional “still life” shots between scenes (but seemingly fewer of these).  However, there are no splashes of red in a perfect colour design (in this B&W film). And although we have Chishu Ryu in a central role (as the elderly father/grandfather), he shares his screen time and his fate to a large degree with Chieko Higashiyama who plays his wife (the elderly mother/grandmother); I am much more accustomed to seeing him as a widower father to daughter Setsuko Hara (but is this true only of Late Spring and not other similar films like Early Summer?).  Setsuko Hara is here and in the same loving daughter role – but the twist here is that she is not blood-related but instead the daughter-in-law (whose husband died in the war).  The film’s plot sees the older couple’s actual children ignore them when they travel to Tokyo (from distant Onomishi, near Hiroshima) and only Noriko (Hara) is willing to take care of them.  (The plot is reminiscent of Leo McCarey’s classic tearjerker Make Way for Tomorrow. 1937).  But Noriko is less strong-willed than in other Ozu films – when asked to criticize the adult children’s bad behaviour (and the older daughter played by Haruko Sugimura is particularly mean-spirited), she defends them and the way that children grow away from their parents, turning to attend to their new families, by saying it is a fact of life, albeit one that makes life disappointing.  (This may be the point where I cried during earlier viewings).  I would have thought that Noriko/Hara would have fought (perhaps vainly) against this injustice, but perhaps we only realise very late in the film how fragile she herself is. These subtleties and nuances are likely among the elements which elevate this particular film – along with its poignancy and genuine feeling for its central characters – but the fact that it feels a little atypical may be one reason why it is easier to single it out for praise (otherwise how could one choose between all of those other great, but very similar, Ozu films?).  Of course, this is a must see.