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Tokyo Story - Criterion Collection Actors: Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Sô Yamamura Director: Yasujiro Ozu Number of Items: 2 Picture Format: Academy Ratio Format: Black & White, Color Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 135 minutes Studio: Criterion Collection Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-10-28 Buy from Amazon |
 "Great Disc, Brilliant Audio Commentary"David Desser's illuminating audio commentary opens the film up in new ways, allowing the viewer to understand Ozu's deceptively simple style with greater depth and appreciation. Demonstrating Ozu's mastery with imagery and in scene after scene, Dessler describes how Ozu builds subtle dimensions of emotional and thematic subtext using camera placement, movement and editing of shots. What may seems rather ordinary at first sudddenly becomes breathtaking and you'll marvel at Ozu's sheer economy of storytelling. Truly, Tokyo Story is a thing of beauty and this disc will show you why. One of Criterion's finest disc sets, and that's saying alot. "So Real, You Can't Forget"Yasujiro Ozu had directed films from late 1920's to 1962. But he hit his stride with "Tokyo Story." Ozu movies are about the lower or middle classes, their interior lives in a very crowded and small country. This film has been ranked by various film organizations as one of the best ten movies ever made. It is a snapshot of the aspiring middle class of Japan in 1953. The war is fading and the post-war miracle is in the making. The young Japanese are striving and materialistic, but it should be said, they live in a very small world indeed. Their houses, even the house of the doctor-son is tiny and everyone sits on the floor, there are no chairs. The elderly parents representing the old Japan visit their two sons and daughter in a rebuilding, industrialized Tokyo. The parents are not welcomed warmly, but are shuttled off to a resort. Only the daughter-in-law welcomes them. Her husband had been killed in the war and she honors his memory by honoring her in-laws. Then the mother dies and the kids go to the funeral and then get back to work. All the scenes of family life take place in tiny interiors where there are for example, close up shots of two kimonoed women talking intimately with much politeness. The exterior shots contrast an industrial world of smokestacks with the beauty of the Japanese mountains and seacoast. The camera angles are very precise. The actors are unbelievably good. If you are looking for plot, you won't find much here, but you will find a studied slice of life. This movie is long and in black and white. It does not move quickly and you must stay with it to take in something different. "A graceful, subtle, powerful film from Ozu"I have only recently begun exploring some of the works of the eminent Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and while I was able to appreciate the greatness of FLOATING WEEDS, it is his TOKYO STORY that I will remember more. Plotwise, Ozu offers more a scenario than an actual story: two elderly parents go to Tokyo to visit their children, who do not necessarily welcome them warmly. From that simple scenario, though, Ozu creates scenes that say so little and yet say so much about familial relations. That is the power of his minimalist style: a lot is left unsaid among the characters, but many things are implied, and of course it is left to the viewer to pick up on the implications and perhaps reflect on them. (The parents' children, for example, all feel exasperation at what they see as their burden when their parents arrive, but only Noriko, the widow of one of their dead sons, is truly nice to them. Obviously that says something about the others...) Watching TOKYO STORY, I felt like I was in the presence of a wise old man who I felt could teach me, in his own silent way, a lot of things about life, especially when I eventually grow up (I am only eighteen myself) and perhaps run into these same situations that Ozu illustrates in this film. Perhaps people might react differently to this film---older people might identify with the situations, while younger ones might react in a more objective but fascinated manner. Either way, I don't think anyone who chances upon this wonderful film will not be moved in some way. What you see with every shot and every image in TOKYO STORY is life---plain and simple. It's so realistic it's haunting. "Are you kind to your parents?"Like many of Ozu's films, "Tokyo Story" ("Tokyo Monogatari") examines a very simple stage in life, one that I hope most of us will be lucky enough to encounter at some time or another. In this case, it is how we treat our parents once we no longer need them for survival. Are they a bother? Do we resent their old-fashioned ways and slower pace? Are we perhaps a bit too eager to shuffle them to the sidelines? The story seems so simple, an elderly couple leaves the country to visit their children who have moved away to Tokyo. Country folk meet city folk, age meets youth, life meets death. There are no big blow-ups, no crisis points reached or contrived dramas, just life flowing along as it does. In Ozu's gentle hands, the entire story is told between the lines, with perhaps not a single sentence of direct dialog spoken in the film. Under the calm surface is an ocean of depth, emotions flowing with an unstoppable power, yet never able to breach the veneer of etiquette and politeness. Ozu's usual cast in at their best. Chishu Ryu plays the father perfectly, flawed and kind, strict in his youth yet lenient in his old age, he is a father-figure more than a father to his impatient children. Chieko Higashiyama plays the kind and appreciative mother, much the same character as in "Early Summer." As always, Setsuko Hara, Japan's "Eternal Virgin," brings light and love into an otherwise dismal story playing Noriko, the widowed Daughter-in-law of Ryu and Higashiyama's son. Setsuko is ironically the only one of their children to appreciate the aged parents, even though she is not a blood-child. "Tokyo Story" forced me to examine my own treatment of my parents, and consider how I will be treated when it is my time to visit my children. Will they dread my coming? Am I kind to my parents? That is the kind of power this film has. Of course, the Criterion Collection presentation is wonderful, with one of the best transfers of "Tokyo Story" I have seen. It is far from flawless, but vastly superior to my old VHS copy. The extra documentaries are delightful, and offer some insight into Ozu that in turn offers insight into his wonderful films. "one of the finest film of the finest japanese director"In the last ten years, the reputation of Tokyo Story was incredibly growing until it is at the moment probably the most famous japanese film. Beside the fact that Ozu made at least ten films of the quality of Tokyo Story, this film suffered among his late films most through the bad material of the survived prints. It was neccesary to restore it. But I have my doubts in the bonus material. The film I have lived, but about Ozu is quite stupid, full of cliches and I don't understand why this documentary was chosen for this DVD. The other documentary, TALKING WITH OZU is a little jewel. 8 filmmakers are talking about Ozu. The most touching interview is the one with Hongkong filmmaker Stanley Kwan. |
