J'ai été diplômé, mais...

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.

An early Ozu short about a young graduate who can't bring himself to accept a low-on-the-food-chain position at an office because he feels he's overqualified; and the consequences of that decision.

Very bittersweet stuff, with a great ending that's happy, but not unabashedly happy. Like a lot of later Ozu works, 'I Graduated, But...' is a humble, down-to-earth story about ordinary people and its joy comes from their minor (meaningless in the great scheme) triumphs.

Especially noteworthy are a couple of shots of the main character at the bar, filmed from table height and incredibly striking, a Harold Lloyd poster that shows up in the background several times, and the conflict between tradition and modernity illustrated by the film's second-to-last shot of a moving train.

'I Graduated, But...' is recommended to Ozu fans and to fans of silent cinema in general.

Only about eight minutes of Ozu's 70-minute feature seem to exist. It's concerned with Minoru Takada's seemingly endless quest to find a job, while loyal wife Kinuyo Tanaka tries to deal with the threat of loss of money and descent into the underclass. What happens when you do everything right, and nothing works?

It's not a new problem, and as the current COVID-19 pandemic continues into its second year, it's not one that has been solved. Ozu tells his story well, using only visuals: Takada's cigarette, dangling from his lips, but never lit. He can't afford to smoke it. Miss Tanaka at their apartment's balcony, looking at the view they may soon lose: what then? The inevitable movie poster on the wall, from Harold Lloyd's comedy hit SPEEDY: stuck on the bench, not given a chance to play.

I hope the full movie will turn up and I get a chance to see it.

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.

A graduate is unable to find a job and tries to hide it from his immediate family. We only have a ten-something minutes long fragment of this, but it's still interesting as is. This film seeps with Ozu's signature sense of humanity, and let's keep our fingers crossed that someday somewhere they'll find the complete version and release it to the world.

The interesting part here is to see the skeleton without the fleshed sense of drama that is essential to most works of any piece. The framework itself works, all the more whetting one's appetite as to how the complete film would've been. The sensation of seeing something pan out so quickly is like stepping in a time warp of some sort — all the laws of dramaturgy and filmmaking are suddenly discarded, and we are given a film that's sort of a hyper-movie, almost like Welles or Marienbad, and we can piece it out ourselves, using the simplest referential context available to us: Ozu's filmography.