A review about Tokyo Story
Tokyo Story is a fabulous Japanese movie directed by Yasujirō Ozu. In my eyes, it is not only a movie, it is an in-depth discussion about the family relationship after WWII.
As the movie started the quality of vintage directly came out from the screen. There is no color in the movie, and only black and white. It helped me to focus on the characters and their acting, and to feel the thing behind the drama. The way they spoke reminded me about the accents when I watched the videos of the famous Japanese learning textbook. They spoke with clear articulation and a mellow and full tune. Even though I do know, Japanese are famous for their politeness, because I worked in a Japanese Company before I came to Canada, I still shocked by the politeness gestures and languages, like smiles and bows between the family members. Another thing, I do know, sometimes, Japanese politeness is the surface of their culture. They are not the kind of people who we will directly speak out when they have feelings. So in the movie, there are so many details, the emotions, the dialogues, the actions, and all of these reflects the value and personality of them. The aging couples always wore smiling face and slowly talked. They were like all the parents in their age, satisfied with the achievement their grown children obtained, and the only thing they want was visiting them and reunion with them for one week. However, in their daughter and sons’ eyes, their parents were occupied their time in their normal life and there was no reason for them to put a priority on their parents. Especially, the mean and cold the daughter expressed. In contrast, their second son's wife showed great kindness to them, which made the movie have a slight of love, even though, she also had some struggling. She was the model of the wife in that time of Japan.
Technically, the movie used panoramic angles as the main way to make the audience watch this family story in an objective way. Yasujirō Ozu did not have judgment or comments in the movie, but from the way the actors and actresses reacted to the specific things, audiences would find it by themselves. It is also a good way for writers, instead of describing the things with the word “horrible”, building up the atmosphere to make the audiences feel horrible by themselves. The audiences are always smarter than you thought.
In the movie, I cannot stop thinking about the anxiety and regret about the decline of the society and value. Grown children need to go to the big city like Tokyo to get a decent job and opportunity, however, they will lose the virtues they were taught when they were children, and also the tight bonds with their siblings and parents. You cannot only judge them because they were busy for works, not their parents, the whole society’s value had already collapsed when they had to face the mainstream value like competition and “money matters”.
This movie was released in 1953, but the discussion it stated people can still figure out in modern days. As an individual, when I stand in the day also history, I feel it is worse than Yasujirō Ozu’s times, but I think for my descendants they will the same way I am thinking now.
It is like Charles Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. “
