to Vincent and Teresa who complain that they never write about Japanese cinema. Well, there goes my three favorite directors and my three favorite movies.
"Through the evolution of both parents and children discover how the Japanese family system has begun to disintegrate."
This laconic Yasujiro Ozu's comment about her big film Stories Tokyo (1953), also serves to describe almost all the films he made over 50 years, of which this is perhaps the best example achieved and elegant. In my opinion is one of the best Japanese movies of all time.
However, Western viewers, who had discovered the Japanese film by Kurosawa and Mizoguchi large and had to wait a long time before contemplating Tokyo Story. Premiered in London in 1965, in New York in 1972, almost twenty years after realization, and in Spain has not ever shown commercially, like the rest of the Ozu film. How can that has been ignored for so long an important work of a filmmaker so cool?
The onus in part to the Japanese themselves. Whereas Ozu is the Japanese of all directors, thought that his films were not exportable, that would not be understood by visitors from other countries. Not only are too subtle and devoid of drama and action required by the Western public, but family problems posed to them specifically seemed incomprehensible in Nipponese West. To make matters worse, many young critics of their own country Ozu's work considered too conservative and in many ways obsolete.
That valuation could be corrrecta Western tastes in the Fifties, but when the movie finally premiered in Britain and the United States, received unanimously enthusiastic reviews and reviews a great surprise to the Japanese. In fact, criticism welcome Tokyo Stories in the West served to revitalize the career and reputation of Ozu in their own country.
The immediate appeal of the film is based on two factors: first, its theme is universal, and second, is treated with real art and skill. Tokyo Stories sensitively explores the disillusionment that parents often experience regarding their children. Material level, the children of the Hirayama family struggling against tremendous pressure and competition from life in Tokyo, and personal level, the harshness of urban life tends to become selfish and insensitive towards others. This idea of \u200b\u200bdisillusionment and disappointment is bound to enfrentameinto with loneliness and death. For some the old Shukishi, this confrontation means acceptance. For others, as Noriko, who decides to remarry, it means change and ronovación. The optimistic note puts the acceptance by the parents of the filial love that gives her daughter when she is denied by their own children.
The definition and credibility of the characters are the key elements for these issues to be compelling, and most surprising of those created by Ozu is that they are all so typical without being reduced to simple stereotypes. The characters are complex and often contradictory. Shukishi, which is usually shown as a man worthy of respect and sympathy, will once again drunken revelry and (weakness as Ozu himself was well known). Tomi is described by her husband as a woman without feelings and be presented as a vulgar and unattractive. The strongest character in the film is to Noriko, who nevertheless admits that now she lives alone, misses the days when her husband came home late and completely drunk. These small inconsistencies are credible and exciting because of its authenticity, reinforcing the universal appeal of the characters who have them.
The other striking aspect of Tokyo Stories is the perfect dramatic structure of the film, reflected in a refined and subtle. The cyclical nature of the theme of change and death is reflected in the symmetry of the film, not only begins and ends with a similar background and seemingly timeless, but is made up of scenes built symmetrically. Since
Tokyo Stories is essentially about contemporary society, not interested in making Ozu heroes. " way things are," seems that this great movie.
Next entries: The Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa and Sansho the Bailiff, Mizoguchi Kenji.
Then I took a holiday movie review, I promise.
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