Film Review
A Story of Floating Weeds
(a.k.a.
Ukikusa monogatari)
was the first film directed by Yasujirô Ozu that, to western eyes
at least, is recognisably Japanese. If we overlook Ozu's first
film (the low-grade period drama
Blade
of Penitence (1927) which he was unable to complete), his
previous films - an eclectic mix of college-based comedies,
American-style gangster films and Hollywood-scented melodramas - all
bear the imprint of Ozu's heroes in western cinema and employ many of
the visual motifs that are alien to traditional Japanese culture.
In
A Story of Floating Weeds,
virtually all of the characters wear traditional Japanese garments
rather than western substitutes and behave as we would expect Japanese
characters to behave, instead of looking like Oriental imitations of
stock characters in a Hollywood movie. It is also one of the
few films made by Ozu that is not located in his beloved Tokyo.
There's a bizarre irony in the fact that one of the reasons why the West was so late in
discovering Ozu's work was because the company that distributed his
films believed he was 'too Japanese' to be appreciated by a western
audience. Few Japanese filmmakers were influenced to the extent
that Ozu was by western cinema, and even a film as quintessentially
Japanese as
A Story of Floating Weeds
was adapted from an American film, George Fitzmaurice's film
The Barker (1928).
A Story of Floating Weeds
represents an important milestone in Ozu's career, for a number of
reasons. First, it was the third film in a row made by Ozu which
won the prestigious Kinema Junpo Award for best film, an achievement
that cemented his reputation as one of Japan's leading film
directors. Second, and more crucially, it seems to mark a
definite break with what went before, departing from the comic-tragic
diptych structure that had prevailed in earier Ozu films and carrying a
more sustained mood of seriousness (lightened occasionally by a few
comic incidents). The characters are more fully developed, more
convincingly portrayed, their feelings and anxieties interiorised
rather than played out for exaggerated theatrical effect. The
film is a prelude to the great films that Ozu would subsequently make,
films that are increasingly preoccupied with the complexities of human
relationships, particularly those within a domestic setting.
The kabuki troupe that features in
A
Story of Floating Weeds is a substitute for the close-knit
families that would appear in later Ozu films, with the exception that
the members of the troupe are bound to one another by far less tenuous
bonds than that of a blood relationship. The cross-generational
conflict we see here is something that would be played out again and
again in Ozu's subsequent 'home dramas', and the relationships between
the romantically-linked characters have a typically ironic Ozu-esque
edge to them. Central to the drama is the fraught relationship
between the main character Kihachi and his grown-up son
Shinkichi.
Unwilling to give up his profession as a travelling actor, Kihachi
refused to accept the responsibilities of fatherhood and allowed
Shinkichi to believe that his father led a respectable profession and
is now dead. Kihachi knows that his son will despise and reject
him if he ever discovers the truth, so he plays the part of the
benevolent uncle, visiting his son when he chooses. It is a
scenario that is reminiscent of Ozu's previous film,
Passing Fancy (1933), in which
another character named Kihachi (played by the same actor, Takeshi
Sakamoto) tries and fails to gain his son's respect. A father's
failure to live up his son's expectations is one of the recurring
themes of Ozu's oeuvre, and no doubt derived from the director's own
difficult relationship with his father, whom he hardly saw from the age
of ten.
The importance of
A Story of
Floating Weeds to Ozu is betrayed by his decision to remake it
in 1959 as
Floating Weeds. This was
the second of only two films that Ozu was minded to remake, the other
being
I Was Born, But... (1932),
which was reworked as
Good Morning
(1959). A sumptuous colour masterpiece,
Floating Weeds was made at Daiei,
one of the rare occasions where Ozu worked away from the company to
which he devoted his entire career, Shochiku. Although
Floating Weeds is one of Ozu's
major accomplishments, regarded by some as his greatest film, it has a
very different character from almost all of his other work, and it can
be argued that the arresting power of its visuals serves merely to
distract us from the more essential elements of Ozu's
craft.
A Story of
Floating Weeds is far less visually striking than its glossy
remake but it bears Ozu's unique signature more clearly, its strength
lying not in the cinematography but in the extraordinarily moving
performance from its lead actor, Takeshi Sakamoto. Not even Ozu
could ever again match the excruciating sense of loss that is conveyed
by Sakamoto in those bitterly cruel scenes towards the end of the film
where Kihachi realises he has lost his son forever and begins to see
the stark emptiness of the future ahead of him. Is this what Ozu
wished for his own father? Maybe.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Yasujirô Ozu film:
An Inn in Tokyo (1935)
Film Synopsis
A kabuki troupe, led by the ageing actor Kihachi Ichikawa, arrives in a
small seaside town. Without telling anyone, Kihachi takes the
opportunity to visit a former mistress of his, Otsune, who bore him a
son many years ago and now runs a restaurant. The son, Shinkichi,
has grown up under the impression that his father was a civil servant
who died some time ago, and is now a promising student. Kihachi
cannot bear to tell his son the truth and leads him to think he is an
uncle. When she learns that Kihachi has been secretly visiting
another woman, Otaka, his present mistress and member of his troupe,
becomes jealous and calls on Otsune. Fearing that his secret may
soon come out, Kihachi rails against Otaka and tells her that their
engagement is over. Otaka takes her revenge by bribing a younger
actress, Otoki, to make romantic overtures to Shinkichi. In the
ensuing imbroglio, Shinkichi discovers his father's identity and
rejects him. His spirit broken, Kihachi disbands his troupe and
decides to leave town alone by the next train. Otaka is not ready
to let him go...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.