Tokyo Story (1953)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu

Film Review

Tokyo Story (a.k.a. Tokyo monogatari) is the most powerfully moving of all Yasujiro Ozu's films, a cruel but brilliantly observed study in inter-generational conflict that is as pertinent today as it was when the film was first seen in 1953.  The story is tells could hardly be simpler.  An elderly couple visit their grown-up children, who are too wrapped up in their own lives to show them much in the way of hospitality.  The only person to offer them any real kindness is their daughter-in-law, the former wife of a son who was killed in the war.  As in his other 'home dramas', Ozu uses the family as a means of exploring the strengths and failings of human nature, crafting as he does so a modern fable of exquisite depth and poignancy.

Tokyo Story is a near-remake of an earlier Ozu film, The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941), the differences between the two films subtly reflecting the dramatic changes that had taken place in Japanese society in the decade following the end of WWII.  Watching the two films back-to-back you can hardly fail to be struck by how the bond between children and parents has weakened, to the point that they are now virtual strangers.  Parents have grown to expect far less of their offspring, and children no longer feel the filial obligations of their forbears.  Characteristically, Ozu does not apportion blame but accepts this as a new, albeit sad, fact of life.  Family ties are not as strong as they once were.

Ozu's trademark stylisation - the static camera, tight framing of every scene and waist-height camera positioning - was particularly well-suited for his home dramas, emphasising the mundanity of daily life and the close proximity within which individuals - be they family members or the working poor - are forced to exist.  The way in which Ozu shoots his films would appear to run counter to naturalism and yet, strangely, it achieves a realism that is every bit as trenchant as that of the Italian neo-realists.  The tensions between the characters are revealed and accentuated by their positioning within the frame, and the lack of camera movement makes it easier for the spectator to enter their world and see things from their perspective, instead of standing back and rushing to judgement.  Ozu wants us to engage with his characters but he never wants us to condemn them.  Even his most unsympathetic characters - and Tokyo Story has no shortage of these - have an endearing quality about them.  When it comes to human frailty, Ozu expects us to be as generous and forgiving as he evidently appears to be.

The remarkable power of Tokyo Story owes as much to its compelling performances as it does to Ozu's flawless mise-en-scène and piercingly perceptive screenplay.  Most memorable is the contribution of Chishu Ryu (one of Ozu's favourite actors), who brings an extraordinary sensitivity and humanity to his portrayal of the ageing patriarch.  Ryu's dignified Shukichi Hirayama is the focus of the drama, yet he is a very passive character, calmly accepting all the disappointments that come his way, showing surprise only in those rare moments when he encounters true selflessness.  No one who watches the final sequence can fail to be moved by its stark poignancy - a tired old man contemplating his lonely final years without the companionship of a wife or the support of his children.  There is no more heartrending expression of loss in Ozu's oeuvre than this, a quiet acceptance of the fact that the family is no longer a sacred institution but merely a temporary convenience for the raising of children.

Film Synopsis

Shukichi and Tomi Hirayama, a retired couple in their sixties, undertake a long journey from their home in the Japanese town of Onomichi to visit their grown-up children in Tokyo.  Initially, they stay with their eldest son Koichi, a doctor who is married and has two small children.  Koichi's work prevents him from entertaining his parents, so it falls to Noriko, the Hirayamas' daughter-in-law, a lowly office worker, to give them a tour of the city.  The Hirayamas then visit their eldest daughter Shige and her husband Kuzaro.  Shige is far too preoccupied with the running of her beauty parlour to have time for her parents, so she packs them off to a coastal resort.  When the hotel proves to be too noisy for them, the Hirayamas return to Shige, only to be told that she has no room for them.  The only solution is for the old couple to split up for the night - Tomi will stay with the kind-hearted Noriko; Shukichi will look up some old friends.  Not long after the Hirayamas have returned home, each of their children receives an urgent telegram, notifying them that their mother has fallen ill...