Toda-ke no kyôdai

Maybe it's not a film regarded as one of Ozu's best, but I found myself liking it.

This time Ozu delves into the problems that revolve around the death of a family member and what it causes. In this case the father of a big family dies and leaves them indebted, so the family makes the hard decision to sell many of his properties to pay his debts. The other matter shown in this film is the problem a family member faces (in this case the mother and one of her daughters) when they have to ask their relatives for hospitality but they don't have a good relationship between them and have a lot of differences, which causes the mother and the daughter to switch from one place to another and never finding a good place to stay in.

The film is really good on technical aspects, as usual in Ozu's films.

I would not recommend this film to people that are just beginning to explore Ozu's films, I would just recommend it to those who really are fond of them and are used to his filmmaking style.

My score: 8.5/10

This Yasujirô Ozu film came out just before Japan went to war with the United States. In many ways, it's very typical of any Ozu film. It uses the stationary camera set low to the ground (so the viewer is looking upward at the characters in many scenes, it has a simple plot about families and is centered on normal middle-class Japanese life. This is not a complaint but there is a sameness to Ozu's films that no other director quite achieved.

When the film begins, an extended family is having a day out. When it's over, the family patriarch is happy--telling his wife how it was a perfect day and how wonderful it was to see his kids and grandkids. Only moments later, the man slumps over and soon dies. Now the family is called back for the funeral and everyone must decide what to do with their mother now that father has died. Sadly, through the course of the film you realize that the kids are all very wrapped up in their own lives and no room in their hearts for their mother.

Other than the print being slightly degraded here and there, this DVD from the Criterion Collection is in pretty good shape. As for the story, I think how much you enjoy it will have a lot to do with how many Ozu films you've seen and how patient you are. The film is slow-moving (like many of his film) and the sameness of his films left me a bit bored after a while. Understand, I have probably seen at least 40 of his films. Worth seeing but certainly not among the director's best or most memorable.

Todake No Kyodai wonderfully captures Japanese social mores in its most regrettable form. If you wouldn't know better, you'd think that the people inhabiting the various interiors (almost all of the movie takes place indoors) are mere acquaintances. Strong socio-specific communicative regulations pervade every conversation, every movement, every wink of the eye.

I don't know much about Japanese society, but the fact that the family's mother is given the cold shoulder (after the pater familias had deceased) stroke me as a critique against individualized (westernized?) modern Japan.

I would also like to mention a nice, though unintended effect the movie had on me: the copy has aged gracefully and at times provides cool hallucinating screen compositions and distorted rainfall sounds, which are welcome diversions from the otherwise monotonous goings-on in the still home environments.

As usual, you can expect a lot of visual purity from the Ozu movie. This has immaculate framing and great compositions. Except that you can experience the same impeccable cinematic style in any of his other 50 movies, and a better story to boot. I tried to immerse myself in this lineage tale of misunderstandings and family breakdown, but I couldn't help but find it stilted.

I admittedly understand that it is a completely foreign culture to begin with, and a culture of Imperial Japan to boot. Be that as it may, the way the script portrays the supposed disrespect the eldest sister exhibits to the mother is the most spurious domestic argument imaginable, where it is simply impossible for me to gauge "the big deal," so to speak. Have Japanese families lived in perfect harmony before the turn of the century and the Meiji era? Have they never kept information from each other or had misunderstandings about how they should all act when the guests come over? Was there seriously no better way of demonstrating that they didn't want the pair there beyond this plastic irritability with a mother and younger sister melodramatically kneeling in front of the portrait of the late patriarch? Oh, those were better times, indeed. Or were they? Beyond the group photo scene, there wasn't even a good impression of how he ruled the family except for the debts that he left them.

Ultimately, of course, the emancipator son, who, without even knowing what happened, immediately assumes they were forced out and condemned to the villa. The cabin that they say is dilapidated and that they won't even sell seeing it is that bad. Which is an even more dishonest statement than the arguments. Looks cozy to me. Just the same, he rescues them and takes them to Tianjin. Good for them. They'll get in on the ground floor in China. 1941 is just about time.

...and director Yasujiro Ozu. When the patriarch of a wealthy and respected family dies suddenly, his children are shocked to learn that he was secretly deeply in debt. They are forced to sell off his property and belongings to pay off this debt, which unfortunately leaves their mother (Ayako Katsuragi) and youngest, unmarried sister Setsuko (Mieko Takamine) without a place to live. The various brothers and sisters take them in, but personality clashes and selfish behavior finds the two women shuffled from one place to the next.

Ozu's strict, regimented filming technique is in full effect here, with cameras set low and at a distance, rarely moving within a scene, and very little music used to score. The performances are all low key, and much of the dialogue is seemingly banal banter. But there is a lot of roiling emotion suppressed in these characters, and it boils up on occasion to moving effect, although never in a loud or hysterical way, as in a more westernized movie. Shin Saburi is a stand-out as the black sheep brother who lives far away but brings harsh truths to the forefront during his infrequent visits. One aspect of the story that is sad in hindsight is when a character rhapsodizes about what a prosperous future they will have working in China, as this was made during the Japanese occupation. That didn't work out so well for the Japanese, or the Chinese for that matter. Recommended.