Tôkyô boshoku

Two sisters, Takako (Setsuko Hara), who is estranged from her husband, and Akiko (Ineko Arima), who is starting to 'run wild', live with their father Shukichi (Chishu Ryu), whose wife deserted him for another man when the girls were young children. The film is a typical Yasujiro Ozu family drama - melancholy, compelling and beautifully filmed. Similar to many of the auteur's other films, the story focuses on the breakdown of a Japanese family but rather than being due to transgenerational changes in attitudes and culture, the breakdown in 'Tokyo Twilight' is ignited by poor judgement and bad personal decisions. I found the resolution of Akiko's story a bit had to reconcile with the images on screen (but this may be due to Ozu's tendency to jump forward and leave it to the viewers to imagine the unseen events). Recommended (even if I remain unsure as to why I enjoy Ozu's films so much).

Generally considered to be Ozu's bleakest film which is, perhaps, why it's often placed behind "Tokyo Story" and "Late Spring", funnier and gentler if not less powerful works , in this director's canon. I would agree with this assessment and ranking although it's a bit like saying "The Possessed" is Doestoevsky's third best novel. I mean it's still a shattering experience that stays with you long after you've finished it and demands to be re-visited. I would especially like again to view the character of the loving but strangely passive mom who walks out on her marriage and kids but wants and expects immediate forgiveness from her children. Ozu and his co scenarist Kogo Noda's treatment of her is amazingly good, bringing out both the monstrousness and humanity of this person so that you are both appalled by and sympathetic toward her. And the downward spiral of Akiko, which in the hands of a lesser director would descend the tear jerking path, is looked at with compassion tempered with a rather cold eyed realism in the scenes at the police station and the abortion clinic. And Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, re-enacting the father/daughter relationship of "Late Spring" but with the interesting difference that Hara's character is married but separated, meet on a more equal plane of maturity, in my opinion, than in the earlier work that makes their scenes together fuller and less sentimental. So while your tear ducts are drier your mind is more engaged. And, come to think of it, maybe that's another reason why this film has been unjustly neglected, at least in the West. Give it an A.

Yasujiro Ozu in my mind has got to one of the greatest directors in Japanese cinema, second only to Akira Kurosawa (also hold Hayou Miyazaki in high regard). As well as film in general, a feeling immediately felt after being blown away by 'An Autumn Afternoon' and especially 'Tokyo Story' years ago and this deep appreciation developed more when watching more of his work relatively recently. Again his work takes patience getting into it but if stuck with it's well worth it and more.

'Tokyo Twilight' is somewhat atypical Ozu. One can tell without any problem or hesitation that it's Ozu's style, which was a distinctive one and obvious in all his films regardless of the subject. The story though is a more intense one compared to what is usually seen with him and the approach is darker and bleaker than the usual gentle touch. That doesn't in any way stop it from being a wonderful film in every way, and is actually an interest point and what makes it stand out among his filmography.

It looks great, purposefully static yet never cheap, for starters, being notable for being the last Ozu made in black and white. With 1958's 'Equinox Flower' and all the films between that and 1962's 'An Autumn Afternoon', so the director's last six films, being made in colour. It is beautifully shot with distinctive techniques that Ozu used frequently, adds so much to the film's bleakness and an intimacy that allowed one to further engage with the drama. Ozu's direction has a little more tension than usual but also has the sensitivity, present in all his other major films, that few other directors before and since matched.

Kojun Saito, an Ozu regular, provides a haunting yet typically understated and sometimes nostalgic score, used intimately. The script is thoughtful and doesn't lay either the intense bleakness or poignancy on too thick. The story is deliberate but never dull, it is one of Ozu's darkest and bleakest films, with a never overplayed intensity between characters, while also very human and affecting.

Characterisation is not one-dimensional and very human, their strengths and flaws relatable and not taken to extremes in either way. Their situations also come over realistically and powerfully. The acting is great with a particularly riveting performance from Ineko Arima.

Overall, wonderful and one of Ozu's best. It is a shame though that it is not as better known as it deserves to be. 10/10

Ozu's stock company runs through variations on their unhappy yet loyal relationships to each other: Chishû Ryû as the father who tried his best and failed; Setsuko Hara as the seemingly obedient daughter, and so forth; the middle class home; the little bar around the office. It's all there and all as familiar as the nail's level view -- a bent-down nail, because the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

We're told that Ozu is very Japanese and I wouldn't understand, but I find his world very familiar, even if everyone speaks Japanese. Growing up, I didn't understand Yiddish -- I still don't -- but my parents and uncles and aunts did and held conversation in it when they didn't want us to understand. Sometimes the discussions would escalate to shouting, and when I would ask what was going on, I would be told "You wouldn't understand." I understood they were unhappy, and for a child, there's nothing more frightening.

So that's what Ozu seems like to me: the same people, the same problems, the same language so I wouldn't understand -- but with subtitles. With the same cast, just like my family. As Wayne said to Howard Hawks, this time, can I play the drunk?

A fairly dark story for Ozu, but you know what? I think that shows Ozu can do just a little different than what everyone expects of him. The ingredients of this stuff isn't just melodrama, it's soap opera - disappointed father, absentee mother, an abortion, and a closed off young woman who doesn't know what to do with herself, certainly not around the deadbeat man in her life. But it's how Ozu goes about - I felt deeply for this family since it builds from a place that just feels real - and awkward in its reality. I think in many of Ozu's films the kind of nice-ness people have to one another (I don't know if this is just in Japan or just elsewhere) is a cover for what they really think and feel.

A lot of what is in the early parts of Ozu films are mundane, just pleasantries, making tea, talking some minor gossip or 'how was your day' stuff. But then it goes into some areas that are much darker, or just can't be seen by the surface of the rituals of Japanese familial ties and relations. And in this film Ozu really made it a point that this family is torn by secrets and lies, and it's so under the surface that it becomes palpable. And there's a noirish quality here that works interestingly, as the sister Akika stews away with her secret in a bar, and doesn't even know the bigger secret about her birthright (and a tinny song Ozu plays often in the film, even in the most tragic scenes, adds a whole other level of the familiar but sadness).

I was touched by Tokyo Twilight, and it wasn't a sudden effect - it came over me gradually, like an old friend coming by and then finding out through a long and staggering conversation what hard times there have been. It's tragedy in full dimensions