Why doesn't anyone want to talk about this film?
What gives? Where are all the message boards?
Someone please think of a topic. It's frustrating me.
"I may not always be right, but I'm never wrong."
I think people find this is a rather atypical Ozu film because for once it is not set among the usual bars,suburbs and train stations of Tokyo, but in some remote seaside town. Secondly, the lead part is not played by Chishu Ryu,the father in "Tokyo story" and the patriarch in so many Ozu films.There is a relative frankness about sexual matters (the leading man has a much younger mistress and he also fathered an illegitimate son years ago) which is quite inconceivable in the earlier films. It is still a wonderful film, however ,in the usual incomparable Ozu style.
shareNot enough people see Ozu films, that's why.
The notable exception might be Tokyo Story because it gets the most coverage. I believe there are several Ozu's that are as good as if not better than Tokyo Story and it's a shame not many people see them. An Autumn Afternoon is my personal favorite.
I think this is a quite dark and pessimistic film for Ozu from perhaps a western perspective. There's an absence of any denouement; in fact knots are tied further. Ozu didn't give us a sense of redemption or that there will be. The father is broken at the end, and the train whistles off into the night, under black smoke. It made me uneasy. We begin with a father's sacrifice: out of consideration for his son he doesn't want to be his father in name (sort of like looking from the other side of the Oedipal myth). But at the end his son rejects him (the son's realization and attempt at reconciliation, goaded by a fourth character, is too late), so he has no choice but to accept this situation, reinscribing their fate. What was prescriptive became imperative. Any hint of redemption is uncertain at best. It's paradoxically as if everyone's stuck in flux.
(In addition this is a superior study of change in the relationships of the sexes from a postwar Japanese perspective.)
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I've been thinking about this movie and your post for a long time and want to attempt a reply. I'm sure that I'm missing the greater part of the movie's significance, but there were some really subtle things that moved me about the ending. The pivotal moment for me was in the train station when the actress tries to light the father's cigarette. It's a very long shot when she lights one match and holds it out to him until it burns out, then lights another and again waits a long time until this time he decides to use it. My feeling about the meaning was that the father was carefully deciding whether he was really going to change his life or not. He knew that if he accepted the codependent companionship being offered, that he would never become the person he wished to become, and redemption would be impossible. On the other hand, he really needed people to fawn over him and take care of him. I felt the actress understood all of this which was why she had the patience for him to make up his mind. In the end he took the easier choice to accept her offer and all that it implied, which was the saddest part for me. It seemed that the whole movie was leading up to this moment, and that having it hinge on such a simple act was a subtle, tragic, and beautiful choice. Did anyone else read other things into that exchange?
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