Tokyo Story

"One cannot save one's parents from beyond the grave"

Yasujuri Ozu's famous film stands the test of time as a beautiful, melancholy story about the widening gap between the modern world and the importance of family. Like a great work of literature, Ozu's film addresses various complex themes in a deceptively simple fashion... on the surface it's an elegant and minimalist portrait of life in post-war Japan but Ozu's approach uses stillness and attention to detail to show the way things are with a depth that suggests realism and truth. It's a Japanese film about life, and as much as I might prefer movies about samurais and judo, I accept that not all Japanese films can be about these things! There's more to the culture than that, and it's illuminating to be able to see a dramatised version of the domestic society Japan had in the 1950s.

Tokyo Story is about Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) and Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama), an elderly Japanese couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their children and grandchildren. The visit fills the couple with excitement, they're happy at the prospect of seeing their family again after the quiet solitude of their autumnal years. However, once the initial flurry of enthusiasm at their arrival dies down, their grown up children try to fob them off onto a hotel. Shige (Haruko Sugimura), their daughter, doesn't want to spend money or waste food on her parents, and Koichi (So Yamamura), their son, is too busy and doesn't have the time to take them anywhere. Shukichi and Tomi become a bother to everyone, but they remain upbeat. Their family tries to send them out to see the city, but they aren't there to see Tokyo they're there to see the people they love! It's a heartbreaking process to watch this elderly couple treated so poorly by their big city kids, and the film takes a dramatic turn towards the end to really twist the knife and make the viewer understand its points completely. By the end of the film my emotional investment had rendered me completely dejected, the selfishness of the children (and their refusal to take responsibility for this behaviour in any way, shape or form) felt like a real defeat. It's a truth that can't be overturned, though we know it to be wrong.

So much of Tokyo Story is still relevant today in how we treat our elder family members and the ways in which we struggle to balance work and life. This film is about the sad truths that we already know but dare not voice... the way the world has changed, leaving the old behind because they don't change with it. It's a process that leaves little common ground between generations other than a shared history. Ozu manages to evoke this via dialogue, capturing the way that people are able to talk about nothing with a deceptive effortless that makes the film feel almost documentarian at times. The camera almost never moves, it's always aimed at a low height, a technique of Ozu's that required all his sets to be specially built with ceilings.

Shukichi reminisces about pre-war Japan in a bar at one point and how things have changed. It's a rare moment of perceptiveness from an otherwise impenetrable character, and one that reveals the expectations parents place on their children and the way this process shapes their lives. Through this scene we also see how Tokyo has become industrialised alongside the Western world - a city of competitive industry where time has become a precious commodity. It's not the most important scene in the film but probably my favourite.

Tokyo Story is a film that really sneaks up on you... an unshowy film, gentle and matter-of-fact in its facsimile of life. It resonates through the way it touches on a common familiarity... it doesn't wallow in audience manipulation or pulls any unlikely dramatic punches. It's understated, but this only serves to make it feel more real, and I teared up at the end when Shukichi thanked his kindly daughter-in-law - it's a small morsel of action given to the audience, but it was just enough to tip the scales and break the emotional barrier between myself and the filmic illusion. In that one near-final moment it became real to me in a way that few films are able to. The tranquil singing of children is heard in the last scene, only to be abruptly and violently drowned out by the roar of a train that's also shown in close-up - a final word from the film about the active encroachment of modernism into the lives of our families.

DIRECTOR: Yasujiro Ozu
WRITER/SOURCE: Kogo Noda and Yasujiro Ozu
KEY ACTORS: Chishu Rya, Chieko Higashiyama, Kyoko Kagawa, So Yamamura, Haruko Sugimara, Setsuko Hara

RELATED TEXTS
- Ozu's other most famous films are Floating Weeds and I Was Born But...
- Tokyo Story is the third film in a trilogy that featured the character of Noriko (played by Setsuko Hara). The first two films are Late Spring and Early Summer.
- The division between modernity and family put me in mind of the 19th century novel Pere Goriot by Balzac, especially in regards to the selfishness of children.
- Other films about generations of families interrelating: The Joy Luck Club, On Golden Pond and The Trip to Bountiful.