El hijo único

Incredibly gentle and touching Ozu picture about a single mother who works her butt off to send her only son off to school. Many years later, we follow her journey to visit that son in Tokyo. He hasn't kept in contact very well. His mother doesn't even know about his wife and infant son, nor that he is a grade school teacher, a rather low (and low-paid) position. Simply put, he's embarrassed at the little he has accomplished and he thinks his mother will be gravely disappointed that she went to so much trouble to educate him. The whole situation really hit home, and I was deeply moved by it. The film also features incredible cinematography and editing.

It is a shame that this film is not available for wider viewing. I had the opportunity of seeing it at an Ozu retrospective in Cleveland. This film measures up to the other great classic Ozu films. The impact of Ozu's films works in much the same way as Japanese painting. There is great power in its open spaces and silences. They lend greater power to the words and emotions that are expressed. The dignity of the characters as they struggle with life is moving. Ozu is a master

of world cinema because he deals with themes of universal import and he does so with impeccable style. Especially noteworthy in this film is his effective use of music and sound. All in all, a very worthwhile experience

It's quite striking that although this film was made 17 years before Tokyo Story, all the aspects of the film-making style we have come to associate with Ozu are already fully present. But compare this film with, say, his "Sono yo no tsuma", made just six years earlier in 1930: in that film --- a rather slavish attempt to copy the style of German Realism -- none of the visual and narrative features he shows here are present.

No one has mentioned (so I will...) -- that the German film which Ryosuke takes his mother to see (in which she falls asleep, and of which he self-referentially says "this is what they call a talkie") is Willi Forst's 'Leise flehen meine Lieder' (Vienna, 1933), and the lovely blonde actress seen running through the wheatfields is Louise Ullrich. This film (now largely forgotten) was a popular sensation in Europe at the time, depicting the love affair between Franz Schubert and the Countess Eszterhazy. Also... noticeable in a few scenes in Ryosuke's house is a large travel poster which says 'Germany'. All of which shows the extent to which European film-making was in the mind of the young Ozu. We think of Ozu as a purely "domestic" Japanese director (in every sense of that word), but in fact he was well-versed in the traditions of western film-making.

Of all the major directors in the world, Ozu was the last one to convert to sound; "The Only Son" was his first "all-talkie" film (in 1936), and it is remarkably inventive (technically) as well as deeply moving. Once again, his film deals with family dynamics: in this case, a widowed mother who has worked selflessly to provide her son with an education. But when she goes to visit him, she finds that he has not fulfilled his promise: he's stuck in a mediocre job, he has a wife and child and can't make any drastic changes because of his responsibilities. The ways that the mother and son try to reach an understanding, and their mutual resignation to the disappointments of life, create a glancing but powerful sense of that "quiet desperation" which was so often Ozu's theme.

The simple story follows Tsune (Choko Iida), a widow and single mother who struggles in a factory job to provide for her son Ryosuke. She sacrifices everything in her own life to pay to send Ryosuke off to the best middle and high schools, toiling away at her thankless job while never getting to see her son. It's not until many years later, when the now-grown Ryosuke (Shin'ichi Himori) gets a surprise visit from his mother at his Tokyo home, that the two assess their lives.

This was Ozu's first sound film, and he can't help but poke fun at the format, with one scene seeing Ryosuke and Tsune attending a "talkie" movie, the old woman's first, only for her to fall asleep during it. But while there are many moments of gentle humor, this is largely a serious affair, taking an unflinching look at familial obligation and expectation. The film asks what the true measure of a man is. Is it financial success, material wealth, a nice home and fat bank account? Or can it be strength of character and generosity of spirit? Ozu doesn't give any definitive answer, and the final sequence of the film leaves the true feelings of Tsune toward her son rather ambiguous.