Time Magazine just released their newest edition of the Top 100 Movies of All Time, and there is slight controversy because they have omitted one of the most popular movies of all time "Gone With the Wind" (1928), which they have parodied "Frankly, they don't care a damn" and called it a faux epic.
It was a definitive list with many foreign movies on the list and a handful from Asia, the most popular being from Japan, with classics like Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru" (1952) and Yasujiro Ozu's (小津安二郎) "Tokyo Story" (Tokyo Monogatari) (1953) included in the list. I did a count of the number of movies and arrived at a total of 26 movies, and my favourite of the list is "Tokyo Story" ("Ikiru" is close behind).
The director, Yasujiro Ozu, which has lately, become my favourite director of all time, deals with family oriented issues in his movies. I have omitted the word "drama" because even though his movies usually fall into that category, he avoids confrontations in his movies, leaving the conflict scenes out of the movies. He allows the viewer to see only the aftermath, and the effects of the conflicts have on his characters. His directorial style is very unique because he film with his camera on the ground. So, the viewer seems to be on "eye level" with the characters in the movie, since most Japanese sit or kneel down on tatami mats. Another enchanting characteristic of his style is that he rarely moves the camera, preferring to let the characters move around in the scenes.
Ozu's movies typically depict the generational changes after postwar Japan and always around the family unit. His biographer Donald Ritchie recounts that Ozu dislikes plot, which is why he leaves the "pivotal conflict scenes" out of the movie. He starts writing a screenplay through development of characters and then fills in the story in between. This unique style contributes to the longevity of his movies because ultimately, human character and personality do not change much through generations.
"Tokyo Story" is the first Ozu movie I watched and I have shared it with many friends, who have loved the movie as much as I did. One of the conversations we had recently after the movie made us aware that such issues as "non-communication" and hidden meanings (even when it comes from love) can still have repercussions today, even though this movie was released in 1953.
"Tokyo Story" is about an aging couple who come to Tokyo to visit their children and their grandchildren, only to find that their children no longer care for them. Only their widowed daughter-in-law takes the effort to spend time with them during their holiday. The children decide to send them away to a short hot spring getaway but when they do not enjoy it and come back, their children chide them for wasting their money. They go back to their hometown and the mother falls ill and dies ...
One of the classic lines in the movie is "Isn't life disappointing" and the sister in law says "Yes", reflecting on the reality of life. Ozu's films usually end with loneliness due to a death or the breakup of a family due to marriage, but they are not morbid. They are lifelike, and they represent little fragments of our lives that we can identify with. Under his careful direction and passion for his characters (even the less desirable ones), we get to know the characters in depth during the 2 hours through a window in their lives, and we are affected forever ...
"Not to have seen TOKYO STORY is not to have lived. . . . One of the most beautiful and compassionate films in history." ・Geoff Brown, The Times (London)
Films of Yasujiro Ozu
Rating: 9.5/10
Other Reviews: Amazon; Rotten Tomatoes
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