Tag: Ozu

Another Year (2010)

Update Feb. 10: Leslie Manville just won British Actress of the Year at the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards.

Update Jan. 25: Mike Leigh is nominated for an Oscar for Original Screenplay.

Update Jan. 18: Another Year is nominated for a BAFTA for Outstanding British Film of the Year, and Leslie Manville for Best Supporting Actress.

“Ah, look at all the lonely people.”

— ‘Eleanor Rigby’

Every Day, Another Year, film titles like these evoke the oblivious passage of time, and the human experiences that float down the stream of life. The kind of films we would find in art-house cinemas, not your fast-paced action or effects-generated spectacle.  Another Year would gratify one’s need for slow ruminations and offer one time to savour the dynamics among characters.  The film was on my ‘must-see’ list at the Calgary International Film Festival 2010, which ended last weekend.  It had met all my expectations and offered more.

What’s more is the excellent performance from a high calibre cast of British actors.  Their nuanced portrayals of characters convey emotions unabashedly, but in a deep, restrained and unsentimental manner.  That is what makes Another Year so satisfying.  I enjoyed it much more than director Mike Leigh’s previous title, equally acclaimed Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), in which Poppy (Sally Hawkins) the happy gal is just a bit too loud and even obnoxious for me.  While here in Another Year, Tom and Gerri are the happy couple whose relationship is one of mature, quiet and gentle bliss, compassionate towards themselves and others.

Framed in the passing of the four seasons, the film explores the realities of life: ageing, loneliness, death, love, marriage, friendship… Yet the occasional animated and humorous renderings of the characters allow a lighter way of handling the subject matters.

Gerri (Ruth Sheen) and Tom (Jim Broadbent) are a happily married couple living in London.  In the midst of the bustling city, they have their own plot of land close by their home where they work hard to grow vegetables. They bring home fresh produce to cook healthy meals and entertain guests.  Their vegetable garden is an apt metaphor for the love they cultivate in their relationship despite the busyness of everyday life. Tom is a geologist and Gerri a counsellor in a medical office. If there’s any pun intended here with their names, it would be for the very opposite effect that they are a harmonious pair whose relationship has attracted those less happy to cling on for stability and support.

Their usual dinner guest is Gerri’s office administrator Mary (Lesley Manville).  A single, middle-aged woman, emotionally fragile, alcohol dependent, and desperately seeking love and companionship. Her male version is Tom’s long time friend Ken (Peter Wight), equally miserable. A heavy smoker and drinker, Ken’s physical health mirrors his emotional state.

But why Tom and Gerri gather such damaged and dependent friends the film does not explain.  What we do see is a most gracious couple extending their lives to them. Through their interactions, we see the contrast. While we admire the almost perfect marriage, we ache for the singles, sad and lonely… as we see them in this film.  I trust the director is making a specific rendering and not a generalization on singlehood.  The contented Poppy (Sally Hawkins) in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) is the best spokesperson for the single league.

Tom and Gerri have an adult son Carl (Martin Savage) who frequently comes home to visit his parents from a nearby town by train. When I saw the shot of a commuter train going past on screen, it flashed upon my mind the image in Ozu’s works.  That is one of the Japanese director’s signature shots, a train passing through, and his favourite subjects also being family, marriage, nuanced interactions.  I thought, if Ozu were an Englishman living today, this would be the kind of films he would make.  And lo and behold, I found this tidbit of trivia on IMDb: One of Mike Leigh’s top 10 films of all time is Tokyo Story (1953).

If one is to find fault with Another Year, it could be the very fact that Tom and Gerri’s marriage is just too perfect. But with all the ubiquitous dysfunctional families we see represented in movies nowadays, Leigh might have opened a window to let in some much needed fresh air. Tom and Gerri make an ideal contrast to what we have so sadly gotten used to seeing in films.

There are excellent performances from the veteran actors, but one stands out. Lesley Manville’s animated portrayal of the vulnerable Mary deserves an Oscar nomination. The most impressive shot comes at the end. Without giving it away, let me just say the ending shot lingering on her face and the ultimate fade to black is poignant and most effective. Of course, it’s acceptable to applaud after a festival screening. And so we did, appreciatively, a much needed channel for a cathartic response.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Notes on the Synthesis of Film, Art… Life?

Recently I’ve just finished reading Paul Schrader’s Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (1972).  Yes, that’s before Schrader rose to prominence as a screenwriter and filmmaker. Is such a book a bit dated?  Considering the techno-reigning world we’re living in now, where speed is measured by nanoseconds, and where 3D and CGI have become the necessary features for movies to generate sales, I think we need to read this all the more.

The three directors in the book had produced some of the best movies of all time. Since I have not seen all the films Schrader discusses, I might not have grasped as fully his arguments and illustrations as they deserve. And I admit I do not embrace unquestionably all those that I do get. Nevertheless, there are many, many parts that I want to record down. I’d consider them crucial elements to mull over during the creative process in just about anything. I’ve listed some of these fine quotes in the following.

They all point to the axiom of ‘less is more’, the value of stillness and simplicity, the speechless sketch that speaks volumes, the importance of being over doing, the quality of sparseness over abundance, the bare essence of life.

Notes to myself: when watching, writing, reading, doing, or just plain walking down the mundane path of everyday, keep these points in mind.

  • Ozu’s camera is always at the level of a person seated in traditional fashion on the tatami, about three feet above the ground. “This traditional view is the view in repose, commanding a very limited field of vision. It is the attitude for watching, for listening, it is the position from which one sees the Noh… It is the aesthetic attitude; it is the passive attitude.”[1]
  • Ozu chose his actors not for their “star” quality or acting skill, but for their “essential” quality. “In casting it is not a matter of skilfulness or lack of skill an actor has. It is what he is…”
  • “Pictures with obvious plots bore me now,” Ozu told Richie. “Naturally, a film must have some kind of structure or else it is not a film, but I feel that a picture isn’t good if it has too much drama or action… I want to portray a man’s character by eliminating all the dramatic devices. I want to make people feel what life is like without delineating all the dramatic up’s and downs.”
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  • His films are characterized by “an abstentious rigor, a concern for brevity and economy, an aspiring to the ultimate in limitation.”
  • Given a selection of inflections, the choice is monotone; a choice of sounds, the choice is silence; a selection of actions, the choice is stillness–there is no question of “reality”. It is obvious why a transcendental artist in cinema (the “realistic” medium) would choose such a representation of life: it prepares reality for the intrusion of the Transcendent…
  • “The opening five shots of An Autumn Afternoon: The everyday celebrates the bare threshold of existence; it meticulously sets up the straw man of day-to-day reality.”
  • In films of transcendental style, irony is the temporary solution to living in a schizoid world. The principal characters take an attitude of detached awareness, find humor in the bad as well as the good, passing judgment on nothing.

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  • Like Ozu, Bresson has an antipathy toward plot: “I try more and more in my films to suppress what people call plot. Plot is a novelist’s trick.”
  • As far as I can I eliminate anything which may distract from the interior drama. For me, the cinema is an exploration within. Within the mind, the cinema can do anything.”
  • On the surface there would seem little to link Ozu and Bresson… But their common desire to express the Transcendent on film made that link crucial… Transcendental style can express the endemic metaphors of each culture: it is like the mountain which is a mountain, doesn’t seem to be a mountain, then is a mountain again.
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  • The abundant means sustain the viewer’s (or reader’s or listener’s) physical existence, that is, they maintain his interest; the sparse means, meanwhile, elevate his soul.  The abundant means are sensual, emotional, humanistic, individualistic. They are characterized by realistic portraiture, three-dimensionality…
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  • The “religious” film, either of the “spectacular” or “inspirational” variety, provides the most common example of the overuse of the abundant artistic means… the abundant means are indeed tempting to a filmmaker, especially if he is bent on proselytizing. (Now… why am I thinking of Avatar?)
  • The transcendental style in films is unified with the transcendental style in any art, mosaics, painting, flower-arranging, tea ceremony, liturgy.  At this point the function of religious art is complete; it may now fade back into experience. The wind blows where it will;  it doesn’t matter once all is grace.

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Transcendental Style In Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, published by University of California Press, 1972. 194 pages.

[1] Schrader quoting Donald Richie, “The Later Films of Yasujiro Ozu,” Film Quarterly, 13 (Fall 1959), p. 21.
The following three quotes are from the same source.

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Some informative links:

Paul Schrader http://www.paulschrader.org/, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001707/

Donald Richie http://www.movingimagesource.us/dialogues/view/274

Yasujiru Ozu http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jan/09/yasujiro-ozu-ian-buruma, http://www.a2pcinema.com/ozu-san/home.htm

Robert Bresson http://www.mastersofcinema.org/bresson/, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000975/

Carl Theodor Dreyer http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/dreyer.html

David Bordwell http://www.davidbordwell.net/

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Floating Weeds (1959)

‘Floating weeds, drifting down the leisurely river of our lives.’

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April is national poetry month… and I’ve been thinking poetry these days.  So that’s why the very title of this DVD on the shelf of the indie video store attracted me right away.  I took it down soon as I saw it was directed by Ozu.  Ozu’s films are visual poetry, the title ‘Floating Weeds’ is an apt prelude.

Floating Weeds (浮草, Ukigusa, 1959) is a remake of Ozu’s 1934 silent film ‘A Story of Floating Weeds’.  The title comes from a favored Japanese metaphor as the above quote depicts.  In this newer version the director has added colors and sound, and given his story a blossoming rebirth. The colors are vibrant yet the cinematography is contemplative.  Unlike some art house films, and despite its title, ‘Floating Weeds’ is enlivened by humor, human interests, and augmented by actions.  Despite the pensive mood the title evokes, I found it to be more story-driven than many of his other works.  However, it is characters that ultimately carry the story, and Ozu’s brilliant direction that makes viewers care about them.

The story begins with a train dropping off a troupe of travelling players to perform in a small town.  The master of the company Komajuro takes the chance to visit his former lover and see his son Kiyoshi, now grown up to be a fine young man, aspiring to attend college in the big city.  But Komajuro has kept his real identity as Kiyoshi’s father from his son because he does not wish his low social status as a travelling actor, and the vulgar circle he associates with to tarnish Kiyoshi’s future.  The plot thickens as Komajuro’s current mistress Sumiko finds out about his secrets. Burnt with anger and jealousy, she plots a scheme to destroy Kiyoshi by bribing the young actress Kayo to seduce him.  The young man soon falls for the actress, but the scheme turns into a full-blown mutual love relation.  Sadly, a marriage with Kayo would mean the quashing of his aspiration for higher education, and possible social reverberations and disgrace.

At the mean time, the drama troupe hits a low with disappointing attendance. The company has to disband.  Komajuro facing failure on different fronts, has to make choices not only for himself, but the future of his son.  In the final shot, the train that once took the travelling players to town now carries them off as disbanded individuals facing uncertain future. Like floating weeds, they drift on in the stream of life. And for Komajuro, he leaves town with the slim hope that his son would fare better than he in the oblivious currents of time.

I’ve enjoyed the subtle style of Ozu.   Here is one of my favorite scenes in the film, and the dialogues are as contemporary as you can find in a 2010 movie.  Whether one sees it as insight or foresight (considering it was remade in 1959), both are gems one discovers while watching the story unfold as casually as a quiet flowing stream.

The scene is about Komajuro talking to his son Kiyoshi as he arrives to his former lover’s home. All the years, Kiyoshi has only known Komajuro as an uncle.  Although Komajuro is ecstatic to see his son all grown up with a bright future, he is also wary that his travelling drama troupe does not measure up to what he would wish for his son.  Here in this scene, father and son’s conversation seems to touch on another issue: art and popularity.  Through this most casual dialogue exchange, Ozu might have conveyed his own ambivalence on the subject more sharply than any wordy treatise.

Kiyoshi: I’ll go see your show.  What do you play?

Komajuro: Forget it.  It’s not meant for you.

Kiyoshi:  Who is it for?

Komajuro:  An audience.

Kiyoshi:  I’m an audience.

Komajuro:  I know.  It’s nothing high-class.  Forget about it.

Kiyoshi:  Why show such plays?  Show something better.

Komajuro:  But I can’t.

Kiyoshi:  Why?

Komajuro:  Audiences today won’t understand good plays.  So you can’t come to see it.

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In his commentary on the 1934 silent movie, writer and film critic Donald Richie notes that Ozu’s films are full of ellipses. There are story sequences he left out for the audience to bridge.  As well, he handled the story with restraints.  Such a subtle way of presenting the material is a very modern style of storytelling.  That might explain why I would care for characters in a Japanese movie made half a century back, where I have to read subtitles, and watch in black and white, or even silent.  Herein lies the ingenuity and artistry of Ozu, that an audience so far removed in time, space, and culture, would find universality and common ground to be totally absorbed.

The Criterion Collection 2-DVD set includes both the 1934 silent movie and the 1959 color remake. The first features commentary by Donald Richie, the later version by Roger Ebert. According to IMDB, ‘Floating Weeds’ (1959) is on Ebert’s list of 10 best movies of all times.

~~~~ Ripples

CLICK HERE to my review of Ozu’s classic Tokyo Story.

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Yasujiro Ozu and The Art of Aloneness

Growing up in Hong Kong during the 60’s, I had my share of Japanese literature and films, as well, the early version of anime.  Books were in Chinese translations, films with Chinese subtitles, and anime needed no language.  As a youngster I had my fix of Samurai action flicks by the legendary Akira Kurosawa, or the early sagas of The Blind Swordsman deftly performed by Shintarô Katsu.  The fast, magical sword-fighting movements displayed in elegantly choreographed sequences defined what ‘cool’ was in the eyes of a very young film lover, decades before Jason Bourne emerged.

But I admit, I had never heard of Yasujiro Ozu (小津 安二郎, 1903-1963) before reading the book The Elegance of The Hedgehog, and since, have become a mesmerized Ozu fan.

In Muriel Barbery’s marvellous work of fiction The Elegance of The Hedgehog, I was fascinated by the following excerpt that led me to explore the world of Ozu. Barbery mentioned some dialogues in the Ozu film ‘The Munekata Sisters’ (1950). Here, after quoting elder sister Setsuko, Barbery wraps up the chapter from the point of view of the concierge Renée, narrator of the book:

SETSUKO
True novelty is that which does not grow old, despite the passage of time.

The camellia against the moss of the temple, the violet hues of the Kyoto mountains, a blue porcelain cup — this sudden flowering of pure beauty at the heart of ephemeral passion: is this not something we all aspire to?  And something that, in our Western civilization, we do not know how to attain?

The contemplation of eternity within the very movement of life.

I could not find any copy of ‘The Munekata Sisters’, but I did manage to find a few other Ozu films on DVD in The Criterion Collection at an independent video store. One particularly stands out, both the film and the special features.  And that’s Tokyo Story (1953), the best known and most acclaimed Ozu work.

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TOKYO STORY (with spoiler)

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Instead of the macho samurai films of his time, Ozu chose to explore the quiet subject of family relationships, parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and from them come the topics of marriage, loyalty, aging, death, filial duties, parental expectations, and generational conflicts.  Through his perceptive camera work, Ozu sensitively revealed the undercurrents beneath the seemingly calm surface of daily family interactions.

‘Tokyo Story’ is about an aging couple Shukichi (the Ozu actor Chishu Ryu) and Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama) from small town Onomichi going on a trip to visit their adult children in bustling Tokyo.  At that time, postwar Japan was cranking up her economic engine, and urbanization was taking off.  Shukichi and Tomi’s children were all busily engaged in their work and family, with no time or patience to entertain their visiting parents, albeit struggling with a thin sense of obligation. They passed the two old folks from home to home, and finally sent them off to a spa resort on their own, a supposedly well-meant package substituting for their absentee hospitality.

With his subtle cinematic language, Ozu explored the issues facing the family in urban, postwar Japan. I’m surprised that in a time when the rebuilding of national pride was as much an essential as that of the economy,  Ozu was brave enough to depict the collapse of the family, revealing the conflicts and tensions behind the amicable social façade.  It’s interesting how contemporary and universal they are.  Have we not heard of those ubiquitous ‘mother-in-law jokes’ in our modern Western society?  Or, in real life, do we not struggle between taking care of our own family and career, and finding the time and energy to look after our aging parents?

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But the contemplative cinematic offerings of Ozu draw us into deeper thoughts. ‘Tokyo Story’ quietly depicts the truth of these issues: No matter how many siblings there are in a family, each person is responsible for his or her own decision and action.  Even in a mass society like Japan, one can still make individual choices. Despite the currents, one can stand alone against the tides, and act according to one’s heart and conviction. While the brothers and sister are evading the task of hospitality, the young widowed daughter-in-law Noriko (the Ozu actress Setsuko Hara) chooses to care for her deceased husband’s parents out of genuine love.  She stands alone in her kindness and grace, a selfless heroine in a family hinged upon superficial ties.

Illness and death too have to be borne alone.  Despite their being together all the years of their marriage, Shukichi and Tomi each has to face the imminent all alone.  After Tomi falls ill upon arriving home from Tokyo, the strong bond of togetherness in marriage quickly dissolves into helpless resignation of parting and letting go.  Shukichi soon realizes he has to face life all alone.  The poignant scene though is that despite his loss, he looks out for his daughter-in-law Noriko, appreciating her loyalty, and relieving her of further obligations.  Despite having no blood ties, the two of them have touched each other in a way that’s beyond flesh and blood. Noriko selflessly gives while Shukichi accepts and appreciates in the midst of aloneness. The tables are turned, while they are left to face life alone, they are yet bound together in an unspoken bond, one that’s far stronger than filial ties.

The Criterion Collection carries several sets of Ozu titles.  ‘Tokyo Story’ is one in a trilogy of Noriko’s stories.  Disc Two features ‘I Lived, But…’,  a two-hour documentary on the life of Ozu, and ‘Talking with Ozu’: a 40-minute tribute to the great director featuring reflections from international auteurs Stanley Kwan, Aki Kaurismaki, Claire Denis, Lindsay Anderson, Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders, and Hou Hsiao-hsien.  It also features audio commentary by Ozu film scholar David Desser.

~~~~ Ripples

CLICK HERE to my review of another Ozu classic: Floating Weeds (1959)