Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari, 1953)
Ozu Yasujiro
Japan
136 mins, black and white, Japanese (English subtitles)
A deeply touching, albeit slow moving, psychological drama about a middle class family in postwar Japan. Much more "Japanese" (if I may say so) than the works of Kurosawa and even Mizoguchi, Ozu's masterful depiction of the subtle, but irreversible, intergenerational alienation exhibits the notion of aware that is hard to explain, but once experienced, easily identifiable. Seemingly an indictment of selfishness, ingratitude, and self-involvement, TOKYO STORY is not as simple and moralistically direct as some would have us believe. It is not a lesson, it is an observation, and there are no rights or wrongs here. It is a meditation on differences between parents and children, and the transitoriness of life.
The elderly Hirayamas, referred to as Father (Chishu Ryu) and Mother (Chieko Higashiyama), live in the remote town of Onomichi with their youngest daughter Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa). Their other children have moved: one son and the other daughter to Tokyo, and the other son to Osaka. They have also lost a son in the war, and his widow, Noriko (Setsuko Hara) also lives in Tokyo and works for Bridgestone. Upon their visit, the grandparents find that their children are not exactly what they expected them to be. It is not just because they have complicated lives and so can't find the time to take them sightseeing, but it's the disappointment that my parents must have with me for accomplishing so little of the promise that every parent sees in their children. It's just that Father and Mother had been hoping for the best, and the realization that their children live in the suburbs (not a good thing) of the big city, is a little hard to take. Nevertheless, it does not slight their love at all.
Quite predictably, the son and daughter, who have their own families now and own business to run, have little time to spend with their parents. As sad as this may be, they have moved on, their true family now consists of others. This is the natural order of things and should not be regretted. They may appear selfish when they dispatch their parents to a modern spa in order to save money and get rid of them, but I've seen worse. Ideally, one would like them to have spent more time with Father and Mother, but everyone acts as if they will live forever (I am guilty of this quite often), and never realize that every moment might be the last until it is too late. Only Noriko seems genuinely pleased and spares no effort to take care of the couple. That empathy is probably a result of experiencing the loss of her husband, and thus being painfully aware of how things can end in a sudden and abrupt manner. This insight is not shared by others, not even by Father, who mostly neglects Mother too.
When Mother dies, the family gathers to pay their last respects. It is evident then that the children are not heartless delinquents, as they do find the time to travel immediately to Onomichi, and are genuinely distressed by her sudden death. The realization that "no one can do anything for their parents beyond the grave" is a little too late, as it will be for the rest of us. That is why the film is all the more touching. There are no villains here; there is only quiet contemplation.
Ozu's style is very distinct in that the camera is held low most of the time, and is mostly static. There are almost no tracking shots, everything is as in still life, a quiet cozy atmosphere where actors can communicate undisturbed. Here I have to mention my extreme disappointment with the way New Yorker Video has handled the subtitles of this film: they barely translated a third of the dialogue! This is outrageous and unacceptable, especially for a film like that, where the nuance of speech makes all the difference. If they had spent just a portion of the money they throw trying to prevent people from copying the films they distribute, they could have done much better.
The film may be a bit slow for the Western viewers, and some of the drama may be completely lost on a culture that has little, if any, regard for parents. I, for one, completely sympathized with the plight of the siblings, because even if you realize what your parents are going through, there is nothing that you can really do about it. Eventually, we all live our own brief, but separate, lives.
April 29, 2001. BLS