Film Review
Days of Youth is the earliest
surviving film by the great Japanese filmmaker Yasujirô Ozu, his
first feature-length film. Prior to this, Ozu had made seven
short films between 1927 and 1929, but sadly these are all lost
forever. Originally titled
Memory
(
Omoide),
Days of Youth was scripted by Ozu
in collaboration with Akira Fushimi, one of the best comedy writers at
the Shochiku-Kamata studio where Ozu spent his entire career, and is
consequently one of Ozu's most light-hearted films.
Although Ozu never went to college himself (he flunked the entrance
exams for Kobe University) his surviving student comedies show that he
had a sound grasp of student life and closely identified with
students. At the time, Ozu's life was not too dissimilar to
that experienced by most students. An energetic young man in his
mid-twenties, he made a habit of drinking through the night with his
friends and would take an annual skiing trip in the popular resort of
Akakura, making use of an inn run by the parents of cameraman Mohara
Hideo.
Student comedies, often made very cheaply and quickly, were among the
most popular films made by the Shochiku-Kamata studio in the late
1920s. Some, including Ozu's films, were heavily influenced by
American cinema, in particular the comedies of Harold Lloyd, such as
The Freshman (1925), which were
phenomenally successful in Japan at the time. One of the main
protagonists in
Days of Youth (Shuichi
Yamamoto, affectionately played by Tatsuo Saitô) is a Harold
Lloyd look-a-like, complete with round glasses. The film is
replete with the kind of visual gags that were Lloyd's stock-in-trade,
the best being a hilarious sequence in which the hopelessly inept
Yamamoto frantically chases after a rogue ski that seems to have
acquired a mind of its own. The humour may not be as slick and
polished as Lloyd's but it still manages to hit the mark, most of the
time.
Whilst
Days of Youth shows
little of the sophistication and stylistic rigour of Ozu's later films
it does contain the seeds of the director's subsequent
masterworks. Ozu's obsession with patterning, internal
symmetries within the narrative, can be detected even in this first
feature. The film ends with an exact reversal of the panning
shots of various Tokyo locations which opened it, thereby setting the
story it tells within an elegant frame whilst also conveying a sense
that the story will continue, repeating itself, ad infinitum.
Another of Ozu's trademarks, his use of ellipsis (...), is also
noticeable, and is used expertly to comic effect in a few places, as
well as helping to tighten the narrative and suggest the passing of time.
It would be many years yet before Ozu would settle on his
characteristic (waist-height) camera positioning and preference for
static camera set-ups, so
Days of
Youth would seem to lack his personal signature, unless you look
very closely. Made at a time when Ozu was at his happiest and had
the freedom to play around with technique, this film has both a
carefree exuberance and a pleasing touch of anarchy about it -
qualities that would certainly have endeared it to Japanese audiences at
the time.
© James Travers 2013
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Next Yasujirô Ozu film:
I Graduated, But... (1929)
Film Synopsis
Watanabe is a college student in North-West Tokyo who is more
interested in enjoying himself than passing his exams. To attract
a girl, he puts a notice in the window of his living quarters
announcing that his room is for rent. When the girl, Chieko,
moves in, he naturally has to move out, but he has a perfect excuse for
returning and getting to know her. The downside is that Watanabe
is now homeless, but not for long. He moves in with another
student, the more studious Yamamoto. It so happens that Yamamoto
has been pursuing Chieko for some time, without success. Yamamoto lacks
not only Watanabe's good looks, but also his cunning. Having
taken their end of year exams, the two students head off for a skiing
resort, but their friendly holiday is derailed when they run into
Chieko. Which of them will get the girl?
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.