Film Review
It is probably no coincidence that
An
Inn in Tokyo, the bleakest of Yasujirô Ozu's silent films,
and the one that most powerfully expresses the misery of poverty,
coincides with a period in the director's life when he was himself in
straitened circumstances. Although greatly respected by his
employers at Shôchiku studio, his income was pretty derisory (a
reflection of his lack of success at the box office), and the previous
year he had had to bear the emotional and presumably financial cost of
his father's funeral. Although the film was written by Ozu in
collaboration with Masao Arata and Tadao Ikeda it is credited to
Uinzato Mone, an obvious corruption of the phrase "without
money". Even in penury, Ozu enjoyed his little joke.
An Inn in Tokyo treads similar
ground to Ozu's earlier film
Passing Fancy (1933), with
Takeshi Sakamoto once again reprising the role of the down-at-heel
father Kihachi. This time, Kihachi is encumbered with two young
sons, and his child minding skills are as lamentable as ever - in one
scene he admits to having contemplated killing himself and his
offspring. Without the comic lead-in that was a feature of many
of Ozu's previous silent films,
An
Inn in Tokyo starts on a sombre note and sustains its mood of
hopelessness right through to the end, and even though Kihachi manages
to finally redeem himself by an act of self-sacrifice, he does so in a
way that will leave his children with enduring scars (as Ozu himself
was scarred by the long-term separation from his father).
The film begins with Kihachi and his sons walking through what appears
to be a barren wasteland - in fact the setting is Tokyo's industrial
flatlands in the Koto district. It is a scene of abject
desolation, devoid of life and dominated by the hulking presence of
water towers, with factory chimneys belching acrid smoke in the
background. The struggle to survive in a cruel world is palpably
rendered, in a way that instantly calls to mind the great masterpieces
of Italian neo-realism. The mood and the setting are not too far
from what we find in Vittorio De Sica's
Sciuscià
(1946) and Pier Paolo Pasolini's
Accattone
(1961), but Ozu manages to extract even more gut-wrenching pathos from
the situation by, for example, getting his characters to partake in an
imaginary picnic when they can no longer afford the luxury of real
food.
As his last silent film,
College is
a Nice Place (1936), has been lost,
An Inn in Tokyo has the distinction
of being Ozu's final surviving silent film. Prior to its release,
it was given a soundtrack consisting of a score and some songs, none of
which Ozu had any say over. Although it wasn't until 1936 that
Ozu finally made the transition to sound, with
The Only Son, he had long
wanted to make talkies (Shôchiku had been making sound films as
early as 1931). He put off the fateful day for as long as he
could, waiting for his long-term cameraman Mohara Hideo to complete his
own sound system (which finally turned out to be a non-starter).
Would
An Inn in Tokyo have
been a better film if it had had synchronous recorded dialogue?
Probably not. Compared with previous Ozu films, the use of
dialogue inter-titles is quite modest and, in any event, the visuals
are sufficiently potent to make any additional dialogue
superfluous. The simplicity of the plot is emphasised by the
sublime simplicity of Ozu's mise-en-scène which manages to
amplify the emotional power of the story.
An
Inn in Tokyo has a fable-like purity and directness that makes
it one of Ozu's most haunting works, a profoundly moving study
in human suffering that is composed with the exquisite deftness of a
filmmaker who has truly mastered his art.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Yasujirô Ozu film:
The Only Son (1936)
Film Synopsis
Accompanied by his two young sons, Zenko and Masako, Kihachi wanders
around the industrial outskirts of Tokyo, desperately looking for
work. As their resources dwindle to nothing, the two boys capture
stray dogs in return for a small cash reward. Instead of using
this money to buy food, Zenko squanders it on an officer's cap, with
the result that Kihachi cannot afford to pay for both a meal and a
night's shelter at an inn. Fortunately, having fed his sons,
Kihachi runs into an old friend, Otsune, who finds him work at a nearby
factory and a place to stay. At a sake-house, Kihachi encounters
a young woman, Otaka, whom he met earlier when he was jobless. He
is shocked to see her employed as a waitress, but she insists she needs
the money desperately to pay for medical treatment for her sick
daughter. Unable to allow Otaka to disgrace herself in this way,
Kihachi decides to steal the money she needs...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.