Daigaku wa detakeredo

It's just a 12 minute fragment, but the portion that was preserved is entertaining and tells a sketch of a story in its own right, so I'm happy I saw this. There is a universality to the hunt for a job after college ("Excuse me, but I'm a college graduate"), and I smiled at him needing to fool his mother by pretending to go work (the "Nomoto at the office" intertitle followed by him playing with kids at the park). As an added treat, we get a movie poster for Harold Lloyd's Speedy from the previous year in the background. Watch it also for Kinuyo Tanaka in her very earliest film - she went on to a prolific career, with over 250 acting credits.

It is important for potential viewers to understand that Ozu's early effort, "I Graduated, But..." is a lost film; only fragments of its original seventy minutes are available for viewing, and therefore the pacing is quite poor and it definitely feels like there is a huge chunk missing to the simplistic story Ozu tells. What is left of the film is, to say the least, quite fascinating, allowing audience members to have a glimpse at a cinematic master's first years of filmmaking. Ozu adjusts himself to the art form he would soon change forever in a way that is as charming and wholesome as one could hope for. There are some very funny moments in the film's twelve remaining minutes, but it isn't nearly as humorous as it was in its original form, drying this intended comedy of its seeming purpose; to provoke laughter. However, this is not the film's fault, for this great cinematic loss was only a fact of chance.

This about a man who has just graduated from university, but cant get a job, is too short to really do much except for conveying Ozu's genuine love for people and everyday life. Not at all an expert on silents, but I bet that not many directors where so down to earth at that time. From the German expressionist films I have seen ('Nibelungen', 'Nosferatu', 'Metropolis' and so on) this is quite a revolution. As the Germans take the drama and the romantic very far, Ozu stays at home with real people. While the Germans are Wagnerian, Ozu is far more subtle.

His device of storytelling lies mostly in the interaction of the characters with little to come in between each scene. Most are shot indoors.

It's Ozu hundred percent: nice middle class guys understanding their mistakes as they get lessons of life from their loved ones. The social situation is harsh, but the tone of Ozu is mild, his empathy for the personages is total. Says Donald Richie in his monumental monograph consecrated to the great Japanese director, "he (Ozu) was always ready to accept human nature as he found it... (and) he went on to celebrate it."

I Graduated, But... is one of the movies of Ozu that is lost. Released in 1929, it was 100 minutes long. What remained are some fragments that have together a length of ten minutes. At least they offer a good summary of the plot.

It is unfortunate that the whole movie is no more. Critics consider it as marking the emergence of what is known as the "style of Ozu." You can see in the fragments in the fragments that remained: the poster with Harold Lloyd that keeps on coming on the screen, the two kids playing the ball, the scenes in the bar. As I said, it's Ozu hundred percent, the amazing Ozu.

As a 12-minute fragment is all that remains of this early work from Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu. Young man Tetsuo (Minoru Takada) is a recent college graduate looking for a job in Tokyo. His mother (Utako Suzuki) and wife Machiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) come to visit from the country, and he lies to them, saying that he has a job. It's only after his mother leaves that he confides in his wife that no jobs are hiring. Machiko eventually gets a job as a barmaid, embarrassing Tetsuo.

There's not a lot of time for nuance, but enough of Ozu's small, human touches remain to make this enjoyable. The universal appeal of the story line, relevant even today, is a plus. I also liked how American culture is present in several small ways, even in pre-WW2 Japan, such as the characters smoking Camel brand cigarettes, and a Harold Lloyd Speedy poster on the wall in Tetsuo's room. I wish the entire film had survived, but this fragment alone is worth seeing.