Yasujirô Ozu’s first film in color (AgfaColor, to be exact), is lesser Ozu . . . but still Ozu. So still pretty wonderful. Dealing mostly with fathers & daughters, it’s one of his generational shift stories on loosening traditions in post-war Japanese culture; here a decline in arranged marriages. Father Shin Saburi, a successful businessman is first seen giving an awkward celebratory speech at a wedding, noting how his marriage, a happy one, began without choice or love entering into the equation. His wife smiles at his side, but what is she really thinking? At home, older daughter Ineko Arima is quietly determined to go a new way and make her own choice for a husband. And with Keiji Sada, a Japanese Gregory Peck type as suitor, you’ll know why. Between Japanese social reserve and communication in a dysfunctional family, the situation is more likely to hit a breaking point than resolution. But with gentle humor, deft observation and more emotional heft than you expect, Ozu finds a way. Here, the real beauty comes less in seeing how things play out than in just watching things play, as Ozu adds color to his compositional magic. Some shot choices more satisfying than entire movies*, and not just his distinctive low camera position. You’ll note something RED in nearly every shot. And his famous ‘pillow shots,’ the little still-life compositions between scenes, more beautiful than ever. Or the frames within frames of boxy apartments, an extra editing device so skillfully used you barely notice that the film uses no camera movement, no tracking, no zooms, not even a panning shot. Yet gives the illusion of movement as needed by increasing editing rhythm during moments of crisis or when Ozu wants to spread some good news around. It’s a lovely little film by this stealth cinematic revolutionary, deceptive as ever.
DOUBLE-BILL: In his next film, GOOD MORNING/’59, Ozu ups the ante from cultural generation shift to flat out Generation Gap, adding obstreperous up-to-date kids (and rude laughs) to the mix.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Example: off-center entry shot in a bar; green-upholstered seats on stool chairs. Impossible to forget; yet neither self-conscious nor ostentatiously frame-worthy.
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