Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari) (1953)

Ozu was a master of cinematic artistry. Shows how the older generation is overlooked as children grow up and become obsessed with their own lives. Ozu had his own cast of regular actors who always gave the best in whichever role they played. Setsuko Hara's character seems more like a daughter and family member than those who actually are to the couple. There's a tenderness and sadness in Ozu's storytelling. Visually, all his films are perfect jewels. Madman's boxset of Ozu films is the only gift worth receiving and giving.

Best film ever!!

really beautiful slow film that lingers in your mind after you've seen it. A very honest insightful movie about the things we leave unsaid. We rarely appreciate those closest to us and realise only too late. I thought each of the characters was honest and real, perhaps faulted but who isn't. I think the young daughter in law who was so poor but kind to her in-laws must have been quite lonely, and missed her dead husband to show such kindness and sorrow at the end. Like she predicted tho, when you become busy with your life, it's easy to become selfish and appear uncaring.

I loved this film. It will be slow for some but the long lingering shots and lack of dialogue allow the images of post war Japan to be soaked up. The final shot of the father pondering his future had me tearing up. Gorgeous.

a bit slow-going but very moving. End was very poignant.

An elderly couple travel by train from their home in Onomichi to visit their family in Tokyo, which in the 50s was quite a long journey. They first stay with their eldest son, a doctor, and his family, who barely tolerate their presence. An expedition is organized then cancelled with a feeble excuse, and the old couple end up at the public baths. They are even less welcome by their married daughter, a beautician, who hardly bothers to disguise her impatience, and ropes in the daughter-in-law to accompany them on a coach tour of the city. The daughter-in-law is the only one who shows concern or respect for her dead husband's parents. She insists they stay over-night with her even though she only lives in a one-room apartment. She cadges a bottle of sake from next door, which she knows her father-in-law will appreciate, gives them a decent meal, and makes them feel at home. Each scene of this movie is an episode in itself, rather like a single-page short story. The camera remains still, sometimes set low, so that detail often overlooked comes into focus. But between the scenes, it scans the immediate background, picking out a feature here and there, which reminds us that the couple are on holiday and might have taken those shots themselves had they possessed a camera. A fascinating insight into a family with its members so absorbed in their own lives they have little time for each other.

Tokyo Story's warm affection didn't touch me like it has many others. Ozu's characters' personalities were so passive and vague that they frustrated me. Just like Early Summer, his visual aesthetic was just enough to keep me interested. The utilitarian feel behind the constant smiles of his actors reminded me I was watching something constructed, which I never like.

Ozu's first maor feature is a spellbinding work with a simple, very slow plot. It's very beautiful and not as mannered as his later films. You'll fall in love with the parents and with Michiko, but even the less likable characters have a real truth. And in the end, you may begin to feel uncomfortable about your own life and whether you make time in it for the important ones. A dream.

Slow to develop but by the end you know & love the family & can recognize familiar issues in their interrelationships. Pauses in conversations with the grandparents is deliberate. The imagery used to convey rural and urban settings was clever. I liked the conversation of the old blokes at the bar. The daughter-in-law is particularly memorable and her emotion at the end surprised me.

To quote my favourite film maker, Wim Wenders: “If our century still has any shrines…if there were any relics of the cinema, then for me it would have to be the corpus of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. Ozu’s films always tell the same simple stories, of the same people, in the same city of Tokyo. They are told with extreme economy, reduced to their barest essentials. His films may be thoroughly Japanese, but they are also absolutely universal. I have seen all the families in the world in them, including my parents, my brother and myself.” Indeed, I have also seen myself, my own family and my parents in this moving and simply told story. The lack of artifice makes it all the more compelling. It is about how we escape the big truths of life through small talk and mundane busy-ness. We miss sharing our great joys and sadness; instead we talk about the weather. On another level it is about the destruction of the family through work and modernisation.

An overly long film which would have benifitted from tighter editing. Slow, some heavy handed plot points but enjoyable for the Japanese context.

A gentle look at a common theme and an interesting look at postwar Japan.

A very gentle little movie - beautifully filmed. I enjoyed it.

Actually made in 1953! Slow moving but poignant theme of an aging couple being neglected by their too busy offspring. Though sad, the end of the film is quite moving.