[Archives from 10/97-3/11]Wataru Hirayama (Shin Saburi) speaks with nostalgic, muted tenderness as he recalls his arranged marriage to his wife, Kiyoko (Kinuyo Tanaka) at the wedding reception of his friend, Kawai’s (Nobuo Nakamura) elder daughter. Despite his own traditional marriage, he celebrates the freedom of young people to carve out their own destinies in the postwar, Western… read more »
To experience a Yasujiro Ozu film is to immerse in the reserved, quiet grace of a disappearing traditional culture. Tokyo Story is a languidly paced, subtly poignant, and exquisitely realized story of the Hirayamas, an aging couple from the provincial town of Onomichi who travel to postwar reconstructed Tokyo in order to visit their children,… read more »
Revisiting themes of marital complacency and mutual respect as his earlier domestic comedy What Did the Lady Forget?, The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice demonstrates unusually dynamic camerawork a later period, postwar Ozu film, featuring several low angle tracking shots – often placed as interstitial scenes in lieu of his more familiar ‘pillow’ shots… read more »
An independent-minded 28-year old woman living in cosmopolitan, postwar Tokyo may seem immune from the societal pressures of marriage, but in Noriko’s (Setsuko Hara) environment, it is a perennially surfacing, unavoidable topic. Her father, Shukichi (Ichirô Sugai), and mother, Shige (Chieko Higashiyama), are unable to retire to her uncle’s house in the provincial town of… read more »
The film follows the plight of the upper beautiful, middle-class Munekata sisters – the conservative and traditional married older sister, Setsuko (Kinuyo Tanaka) (dressed in a kimono) and the liberal minded and free-spirited younger sister Mariko (Hideko Takamine) (dressed in Western attire) – as they struggle to build a new life in postwar Tokyo away… read more »
Professor Shukichi Somiya (Chisyu Ryu) has dedicated much of his time and energy to his studies, leaving his daughter, Noriko (Setsuko Hara), with the task of managing their household. It is a comfortable and nurturing environment that suits them well until one day when Noriko meets an old family friend, a widower named Onodera (Masao… read more »
A somber, bleak, and uncharacteristically violent Ozu postwar film, A Hen in the Wind follows the plight of a dressmaker named Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) who lives meagerly as a boarder in a modest house in a working class district with her young son Hiroshi. Awaiting her husband’s repatriation from Manchuria, Tokiko subsists through dressmaking and… read more »
A well-intentioned fortune teller, Tashiro (Chishu Ryu) returns home with a lost boy from Chigasaki named Kohei (Hohi Aoki) after a trip to Kudan. His roommate, a struggling actor named Tamekichi (Shohichi Kawamura) disapproves of Tashiro’s impulsive act of kindness and convinces him to send the boy away for the evening to stay with a… read more »
A widowed high school teacher named Horikawa (Chishu Ryu) experiences a traumatic episode during a school field trip and consequently, decides to abandon his profession and move to a small town where his son, Ryohei may obtain a good education. However, unable to earn enough money to pay for Ryohei’s boarding school, Horikawa decides to… read more »
On the occasion of the family patriarch’s 69th birthday, the noble and privileged Toda family has assembled for a formal commemorative photograph and a dinner banquet that would prove to be their father’s last. Forced to sell the family home in order to settle their father’s unresolved, business-related debts, Mrs. Toda (Ayako Katsuragi) and the… read more »