Yasujirō Ozu

 

Luckily for me, I live in a cultured city with a lots of little art cinemas and right now they were showing a mini retrospective of a famous Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu - who is very highly praised by film critics but nowhere near known as Akira Kurosawa in my opinion. It might be that he is one of those cult figures known to his fans and followers. A friend was pointing me at his direction for a longest time and I did watch "Late Spring" (1949) but it was strange experience - this way of film making is so different than anything in the West that I wasn't sure what to think of it. It is like entering a completely new world with its own rules and aesthetic, definitely an acquired taste. However, Ozu kept lingering somewhere at the back of my mind so I welcomed this retrospective and two days in a row walked after work to a local little art cinema to watch these movies.

"Early Spring" (1956) was like typical Ozu movie incredibly slow. I mean, dead slow. The man had a style where everything important was happening outside of the camera and we are only casually told that something happened elsewhere. For example, a typical Ozu dialogue goes like this: 

"Would you like a cup of Tea?" 

"Yes, I would like a cup of Tea"

"Here is your cup of Tea"

"Thank you'

It is difficult to describe exactly what is the story of this movie because there is no main story - we follow several intertwined lives of individuals working for big corporate company and how they all slowly come to realise this is their life and their destiny, to be a little wheel in a grinding mechanism that will eventually replace them one day. Ryō Ikebe lives in a cold, loveless marriage with Chikage Awashima - later we find out what happened - and out of sheer emptiness has affair with a work colleague (radiant Keiko Kishi) all the while as we are introduced to people who are around him. Even though the story as such is basically non-existent and Ozu is more concerned about impressionistic outline of his character's feelings, something very beautiful happens along the way and suddenly I found myself truly caring about them and being indeed very moved by it all. It was truly like a magic - once you get caught up in his style and slow-burning story, suddenly it feels just right and you actually enjoy it. It have actually left the cinema all dazed and it stayed with me for a long time.

"Tokyo Story" (1953) has a gigantic reputation as one fo the best movies of all time (if not THE best) and according to critics it enjoys totemic place in the history - actually I would not say that is any better than two previous movies I have seen by Ozu. Each of them is like some beautiful dream that is slowly unfolding (very, very slowly) and perhaps the only reason why "Tokyo Story" resonates so much with audiences across the time and place is because it touches a nerve common to everybody, namely the question of parents getting older and children living their lives. Where ""Late Spring" dealt with arranged marriage of unwed spinster and "Early Spring" with adulterous affair, "Tokyo Story" is about the passage of time and how we all find our places in life - parents get old, children grow up and must live their lives. Its interesting to recognise the actors that Ozu preferred for his movies - it is only my third Ozu movie but I can tell he loves the very much the same team, including wonderful Setsuko Hara and Haruko Sugimura. Again, it was very slow but at this point I kinda knew what to expect so didn't really mind, this was his style. These movies are not for everybody and it might be that viewer must be in particular frame of mind in order to enjoy them - if you are looking for lots of action, this is definitely not for you - this is more philosophic reflection on life and very stylish cinema that gets under your skin. Be warned, the other "entertaining" movies might look very banal after this.