Tokyo Story - Criterion Collection

Rating:
Summary: Tokyo Story
Review: Tokyo Story is simply, the best film ever made. Ozu is a remarkable Japanese director with such a keen perception of humanity and human existence. No words can do justice to his story telling power, and he does it with such grace, reserve, etiquette and charm that it is impossible to believe you are watching a family. It is like spending a good two hours with a next door neighbour. This, the most revered of his films, takes a simple story of an elderly couple visiting their neglectful grown-up children, which could have been a melodrama; instead he elevates it to a philosophical medidation on the transience of human existence and privileges of living. A stunning work from one of the greatest masters of all times, do not let the steep price, in any way discourage you from getting a copy (a small price to pay New Yorker for getting all these wonderful films). Simply, the best film of all times. Citizen Kane is only a distant runner-up.

Rating:
Summary: So Real, You Can't Forget
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: So Real, You Can't Forget
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: What is a masterpiece?
Review: Yes, Kane has all the bells and whistles, Last Tango is high art, Ben-Hur is the ultimate studio colloboration - none have the simple power of Ozu's finest film. This is the least cinematic of films, the media is truely transparent, Ozu restricts and restricts himself to simple stylistic rules until there is really very little "film" and all story. Film has the power to grossly manipulate the emotions - wisely Ozu avoids all these devices. We meditate rather than stare, empathize rather than live vicariously, anti-addiction, anti-trauma, we have real intimacy rather than intensity and release. This is spiritual nourishment, not carnal satisfaction. Frankly, the most mature film from the true master.