Tokyo Chorus (Tokyo no gassho). 1931. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu.

(3/19/00)

I still can't really appreciate Ozu, bu that's mostly because my eyes hurt and I just don't feel so good in general. It's hard for me to settle down and relax enough to take in Ozu. (And this was shown in a pretty bad 16mm print.) But I certainly can recognize the film's quality.

It is about a man who loses his job. (This is a subject with which I can identify at present.) This is a pretty serious subject, but it is lightened with touches of genial humor. A man goes to work on the day the employees are given a bonus. They are all anxious to see what is in their envelopes, but don't want to open them when others are around. The mens' room becomes suddenly popular. One man's bonus falls into the urinal and he has to pick the bills out (eeeeew!) and dry them at his desk.

One man is not very happy. It is his last day at work. Even though he has worked there a long time he has been let go, supposedly because he has sold some insurance policies to clients who died shortly thereafter. He is a very sad-looking figure.

The father, as I shall call him, and protagonist who has promised to buy his son a bicycle out of his bonus confronts the boss about this. This scene is so universally human; it is one with which so many of us can identify, either because we have done it or wish we could do it. The problem is that he does not know how to handle such a situation (and how many of us do?), it becomes a confrontation--and he is fired himself.

This outcome rings so true, even while I think it didn't have to end that way. He could have asked to talk to the boss (who doesn't seem to be a bastard or anything) and talked to him in a respectful way, and then accepted the outcome. This did not have to happen.

The other thing that I kept thinking throughout this film is that he should have gone back to the boss, apologized, and asked for his job back. A very simple alternative which was at least worth a try. But he never even thinks of it.

He goes home and only has a skateboard for the son who throws a tantrum and calls his father a liar. Of course, the son has no way of knowing what has just happened and it is difficult for the father to just sit him down and explain the situation. It is a very painful scene--but boy, does it ring true.

Another really vividly true scene occurs when the daughter gets sick and has to be taken to the hospital. There is not enough money to pay for it and we learn that the father raises it by selling some of his wife's clothes. The way we learn about it is when she opens the drawers of her bureau and they are empty. The father says something like, "Because we sold your kimono, MacKiyo is alive."

This takes place at the dinner table and the mother's reaction as she struggles with the pain of losing her good clothes and the awareness that it was the right thing to do is perfect.

I was less impressed with the second half of the film. The father meets his former instructor from school who asks him to help with his restaurant, promising to help him get a good job later on. (The former instructor looks kind of silly; he has a large, ungainly moustache that doesn't seem to go well around food.) The father agrees and is made to wear the equivalent of a sandwhich sign and give out handbills. His wife sees him and is angry about this, but comes to accept it and offers to join him in helping at the restaurant.

There is a scene where there is a reunion of the former classmates at the restaurant. And then the resolution: the father is offered a position teaching English at a girls' school in a provincial town. It is obvious that the mother is not overjoyed at the move, but she asks if they'll eventually be able to come back. Tokyo Chorus ends on a reasonably realistic note with the problem being resolved, even if not as happily as one would have liked.

I Was Born, But... (Umarete wa Mita Karedo). 1932. Directed by Yosujiro Ozu.

(12/24/99)

I certainly find this one of the most intriguing titles in film history. Otherwise, I have to confess that I really don't "get" Ozu. Perhaps that's because my own mind is so noisy that it is really hard for me to appreciate something so quiet.

Not very much happens in this film. A family moves into a new neighborhood. The kids have trouble getting along with the kids in the neighborhood. They go to the boss's house for an evening of home movies. The kids see their father behaving foolishly in the movies and are embarrassed. They question him about why he is so deferential to the father of one of the other boys who happens to be a director in the father's company. They call their father a failure and refuse to eat. They finally come to an acceptance of the situation.

The film shows a close observation of human life. I found it interesting and amusing at first, then tedious as it went on and on with the adventures of the kids, but it rallied and the last section had real power. It was a true story about human life in which all the characters are basically nice people and the problems that they face are the ordinary ones that we all more or less face. I certainly liked it a hell of a lot better than My Neighbors the Yamadas--another Japanese film about acceptance of one's place in the world.

The father does admit (to the mother, I think) that he does kiss ass to his superiors and their lives are better because of that. And it is sad that this is so often required in this life.

Being made in 1932, this film has a surprisingly "modern" look for a silent film.