‘Tokyo Story’ and the Traits of a Domestic Filmmaker
Despite its age, Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story from 1953 feels all too real. For me, Ozu comes off as what I think of as a “domestic” filmmaker: where he centers his plots around the common occurrences within a single family. I also saw this as a theme through the other Ozu works I have had the pleasure to see, from the children wanting to buy a television set in Good Morning, a tight father-daughter relationship being split in Late Spring, and an eldrely couple visiting their children in a bustling metropolis in Tokyo Story. Ozu is a director who focuses on relationships in his films.
In Tokyo Story, as mentioned, we focus on the travel of Sūkichi and Tomi, who are visiting their grown up children in Tokyo. While technically, the film is rather dated due to the time period it was filmed in and the technology that was available at the time, Ozu shows all of his characters with a certain relatableness that ends up being a true gut-punch at the end. The timelessness of this kind of story, focused on inter-familial struggles, is what keeps the work of Tokyo Story feeling so modern. Not everyone can appreciate the feeling of being in a post-WWII society today, nor can they appreciate the feeling of being swamped by the rapid urbanization of so many countries, but they can sympathize with elderly parents who want to see their children and grandchildren. We all have tall tales about our family, and these stories are what Ozu simply excels at.
You cannot help but feel sad for Sūkichi and Tomi throughout the majority of the screen time in Tokyo Story. They are definitely on the older side, and had completely left their zone of comfort in Onomichi to see their family in the unfamiliar land of Tokyo, only to be completely brushed aside by sons and daughters who are too busy to even take them out for dinner. While Kōichi and Shige, the son and daughter in Tokyo, appear loving at first, there is a cold distance between them and their loving parents. They claim to be too busy with work, and create a true sense of alienation, and Sūkichi and Tomi are too kind to speak up about it. Ozu maintains this sort of melancholic mood throughout the film. Sūkichi and Tomi may not show their emotions terribly externally, but the audience does. We replace Sūkichi and Tomi with our own parents, and fear the driving force of alienation that slowly removes them from the lives of their children. It is a terrifying thing, thinking about a life without your parents, and I felt that sort of anger at the children, who went about their lives as if a thing hadn’t changed, as if their visiting parents did not exist. They shoved their parents into a hotel and forced them onto their in-laws rather than spend any kind of quality time with them themselves. Even after Tomi passes away of a sudden illness, some of their children continue to show this large sense of apathy, with Kōichi leaving almost immediately, and Shige digging through her mother’s belongings before also leaving. I, for one, was certainly floored by the conclusion of the film, and almost immediately called my parents to check up on them. Tokyo Story finds a way to wrench guilt out of even the closest families.
To suppress the audience’s rage at the children, Ozu provides a sort of POV character in Noriki, the widow of one of Sūkichi and Tomi’s sons who presumably died in WWII. Out of all of the characters in Tokyo Story who shows any sort of love and affection towards Sūkichi and Tomi at all. For all of the melancholy and distance shown by the rest of the family, Noriki is a ray of sunshine above all else. Jobs, spouses, children, none of these things prevent Noriko from showing the truest of love and affection.
Ozu’s very particular directorial style helps to reinforce this homeliness of the issues he highlights in Tokyo Story, most importantly with his well-known use of the “tatami shot”. Using a low-angled camera with a fixed focal length, Ozu creates a familiar geometric space within the household. Hallways, doors, and floors are all seen at once, with an intense amount of depth to each shot. With this framing, we see every person and everything happening at once. We the audience become profoundly familiar with the settings of Tokyo Story, as if it were our own home. The reduced amount of locations the story takes place in also helps reinforce the comfort of the home, and when Sūkichi and Tomi are out of these settings, we feel as uneasy and alienated as they do.
The shot choices for dialogue scenes also stand out in Ozu’s film. Instead of following a more traditional shot, reverse-shot, 180 degree rule style, Ozu completely shatters the convention. Using a similar low angled camera, most of the lines spoken in dialogue scenes have the actors speak directly to the camera. The camera is not bound to a single imaginary line, so it moves from character to character as it pleases in a much more intimate way. By having his actors speak directly to the camera, we feel like we are a part of the conversation. These are not just random characters we have met for the first time, but they are family. We are not voyeurs looking off from a distance, but we are center stage, taking part in the same crises and conversations all of the characters are. They are not just talking to each other, but to us as well, which makes the emotional swings of Tokyo Story hit so much more. Because we are right there with them.
Tokyo Story hits you like a pile of bricks. Through Ozu’s masterful craft of direction and shot choice, an intense intimacy between the audience and the characters of the film is cherished. We identify with the struggles of the Hirayama family because we have been allowed by Ozu to join the family.
