Japanese Family Drama (yawn)

Tokyo Story – 1953, Yasujiro Ozu (136 min)
Memories of Matsuko – 2006, Tetsuya Nakashima (130min)
Tokyo Sonata – 2008, Kiyoshi Kurosawa (120 min)

The very dapper Yasujir Ozu was a prominent Japanese film maker who achieved recognition outside Japan only after his death. His films are placed on the shelf labelled ‘Masterpieces’ along with the work of Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard et all.

The biggest criticism that is ever made of Ozu is that no one can tell one of his movies from another, and this is never made scathingly, it seems more of an observation of the fact that all of his films are equally outstanding. There’s no doubting it, Ozu could frame a shot. Every shot in every scene of Tokyo Story is a perfect composition. When reproduced in greyscale, Jan Vermeer’s 17th century oil The Art Of Painting is very reminiscent of Ozu’s style.



(well La-Di-Da)

Equally remarkably, Ozu’s camera almost never moves (there is one tracking shot in Tokyo Story and no pans as far as I recall) and interior shots are almost always from waist height (because everyone’s sitting on the floor). This humble minimalism makes Ozu’s films seems alien and creates the impression that his films have an immense sense of ‘Japanesenes’ to them, when in fact, as far as Tokyo Story goes, the story and characters are completely universal.

This film is about an elderly couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their children and grandchildren. They spend their time trying not to inconvenience their children, who in turn make little effort to spend any time with their elderly parents who have made a long trip to see them. Lack of respect for one's elders and unconditional love for one's children are the themes.

Clearly sad and bleak by design, but I found it hard to tell if the elderly couple who are the central characters were supposed to be comical. They maintain the same puzzled expressions throughout, even during the gloomy conclusion. The other character of most prominence is their daughter in law who was widowed when her husband went missing, presumed dead during the war. She also maintains the same expression almost the whole time, her's a face that always smiles politely even when she is dying inside.



She is genuinely tragic, maintaining a strangely optimistic acceptance that her life is already over.

I suppose I’d recommend Tokyo Story, but I won’t be seeking out any of Ozu’s other work any time soon. That said, as one of the giants of Japanese cinema, his influence presides over a lot Japanese film I’ve seen. Even violent and horrific Japanese films have moments of utter calm and tranquillity than can perhaps be traced back to him. He is an observer. His camera gives us the view of a silent character in his film sat on the floor like everyone else. There is no escape in his films.

Memories of Matsuko by contrast is pure escapism (is this contrast to Ozu’s style evidence of his influence?). In fact it’s the Japanese Amélie.



This film is basically a pantomime, a film that want’s to be a pop video. To me this films appears to have been made by westerners trying to make a Japanese style film. Some scenes are actualy pop videos intentionally, but all the quirky stuff detracts from the drama, so by the end it’s straining to strike an emotional chord. Some bits are very funny but they come at the expense of the drama...like it’s worried about taking itself too seriously.

Memories of Matsuko is very imaginative and the director has clearly brought his vision to life with a relatively small budget, however...

This film is basically ‘Japanese Bullshit’. If you surf the web a lot you’ll be familiar with Japanese Bullshit and probably have your own interpretation of what is bullshit and what isn’t. I’m often the first to defend a lot of films that might be considered bullshit. And a lot of Japanese stuff isn’t Bullshit in my opinion, but increasingly, there things that come out of Japan that are held up as examples of excellent art/film/whatever that are, in fact, bullshit. I strive to keep my blog free of my cynical and ill-conceived opinions on modern culture, so I’ll stop ranting now, but I will point you in the direction of this slideshow on the overrated Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara.

As the guy says on slide 8 ‘‘It's one thing to be inspired by something, another thing to channel its energy authentically.’’ This comment sums up MOM perfectly in my opinion, and helps me explain why I’m not crazy about films that I should like, namely Amélie and Run Lola, Run. Original, ground breaking films so rarely receive the attention they deserve, so when one does achieve success, audiences accept uniqueness and individuality as enough to wow them and are too easily bowled over. But ‘new’ and ‘different’ aren’t enough.

Tokyo Sonata is a film that is exactly what I expected, yet still entertaining.
This film is about the interesting phenomenon of Japanese salary-men who are laid off but don’t tell their families. The leave home every day as if they were going to work. ‘Sonata’ is about one such guy who can’t bear to tell his family the truth, yet is infuriated by the lies his wife and children tell.

Just as slow as Story but the fact the camera actually moves makes it more interesting. In this sense the film serves as a critique of Ozu’s style, there can be such a thing as too much stillness, particularly when so many scenes take place in a domestic setting. The lead actor (who has a small role in MOM) is really good. In fact the whole cast are good. This film contrast very well with Tokyo Story (they would make two halves of an excruciating double feature) showing the difference between Japan today and of 50 years ago. No one will ever call it a masterpiece, but it looks good and the camerawork compliments the pace of the story. The humour comes across better in this one, probably because it’s more contemporary and less confusing.

Tokyo Sonata is a film about deceit within a family. Tokyo Story is a film about a family growing apart. Both are good.

Memories of Matsuko, Amélie and Run Lola, Run are films about Love. But love stories have been done more than any other, so it’s important to try something different, and each of these films should be commended for their originality, but not to the extent that their flaws are ignored.