Il était un père

One more step in Ozu's long journey of trying to balance between a cinematic eye that sees with clarity into the disasters of dramatic life and reflections of that eye, his most famous films still ahead of him. French and Soviet silent filmmakers innovated in the 20's by looking to see the seeing eye in action, shaping, morphing world with vision. Ozu introduced something altogether different: non-mind, nothingness between eye and world.

This was a completely novel thing at the time in terms of cinema - although it's supported by a rich Buddhist tradition.

Even Ozu seemed unsure how to handle it. Cultivating this took him time. It is possible for example, that being a young Japanese cinephile fascinated with modern Western culture, he thought for a time that he was only reworking Chaplin, a visual story, pared down to essentials. He dabbled for a time with a fluid camera, after Sternberg. He did a chamber drama, controlled, stagebound environment, very German.

But at some point, he must have suspected this had potential to go much deeper than anyone had envisioned at the time. I believe the key transition was Dragnet Girl from '33: a gangster film, very upbeat and jazzy, pure Sternberg razzle-dazzle, that is until the finale, where the modern movie night of danger and intrigue gave way to the clarity and stillness of the first morning light.

This was great. He had discovered the eye, a landscape painter's eye, but not yet the right landscape. He spent the next couple of films looking. It should be life, he knew this much, but what kind of life?

Now this. The story is about a teacher scarred by an accident he couldn't prevent, and efforts of his surrounding world to extricate him from the exile of self-imposed guilt. He sends his son away, to study, work hard and advance himself. He keeps himself away, somewhere in Tokyo, and only periodically surfaces back from we presume a frugal existence. At a class reunion with his former pupils, he is reminded, urged to consider, that the world is moving ahead, still turning. All his pupils are grown men, married, most of them with kids.

So what a change from earlier fathers Ozu portrayed, often itinerant bums, a source of dismay or embarrassment for their kids. Here's a father who is hardened, by his own failures no less, resolute, preaching to his son that "work should be considered every man's mission" and to "serve your country".

There is of course the obvious comment to be made about wartime allegory and the call for patriotic action, by itself not very interesting. Sons of Japan urged forward by a strict but well-meaning father. Incidentally, that same year was when tides of war started turning in the Pacific, blowing back towards Tokyo and destruction.

But there is more here, for the first time. Now if we only listen to the story, the father is a tragic hero and a model to emulate. The dutiful son goes away in the finale, presumably to strive to fulfil his father's wishes. The parting image is one of many poignantly still shots.

So far Ozu had favored dramatic resolution of that stillness - Floating Weeds, Tokyo Inn - and at first glance this is no different. But these images reveal a more complicated world beneath the story.

Consider the plot again. The traumatizing event occurs because the father is not there to see. This is understandable; we cannot keep the whole world in check. It turns independent of us, transient, impermanent flow. The event also happens away from our sight, but in place of it we have a perspective the father lacks. At the crucial moment, Ozu cuts away to a shot of an ornamental stone top on a vertical post of a bridge. Now images of bridges feature prominently in Japanese iconography, signifiers among other things of what the Buddhist understand as the floating world. Distances in old Japan were traditionally measured from the great Nihonbashi bridge, the center of a symbolic axis mundi.

There is no motion from this point of stillness in our film, although we know a plot is being set in motion in the flow of transient waters below, a life being lost.

How does the father handle this? Distraught from the tragedy, he takes off with his son on a train. Not having made his peace with the fact, he later removes himself from sight of his son, who needs him more than anything else. And how does the son? He becomes the father he's been effectively deprived of, this broken man infused with values from that loss. In the finale he sails off into the night, onboard another train.

Trains; man-made, mechanical structures of life, human karmas in motion.

On the other hand, an immovable spot above the waters, clarity, dispassion, centered vision.

Being a fan of Ozu, you see here all the elements of his film making: The long shots, the trains, the interaction of family members etc. Kind of a precursor to the superior "Late Spring", this story revolves around a father and son's relationship. He works hard to get his son through school, so he can have a better life. However, they are not in the same place, so they do not see each other all that often. The film spans several years, in which the son goes from a young boy to a man. Chishu Ryu, who has starred in many Ozu films, is the father. Of course, he is great, he always is. Since the mother passed before the film even started, the boy only has the father, and their relationship is the heart of this film. A good to almost very good film, it was shown, appropriately enough, on Fathers Day on Turner Classic Movies. If you like Ozu, you'll want to see this. If you're new to him, check out the films with Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, as well as his swan song "Autumn Afternoon" and even "I Was Born, But" before watching this. I liked it, it was a nice film. Its another worthy Ozu film, in a career that had so many of them.

Another sober wartime drama, this time a sort of reworking of THE ONLY SON as a widower schoolteacher decides to send his boy to a boarding school to give him the best education possible and seek a higher paying position to afford tuition. The film takes a sudden leap forward in time as the grown son desires to take care of his aging father, but the father forbids the son to compromise his own career. The war is barely mentioned but the film can easily be read as a propagandistic statement about self-sacrifice and devotion to duty, even at the cost of family unity. However, the pensive, tentative mood Ozu captures at the end, embodied in the son's distant, troubled look as he thinks about his father, hints at Ozu's own reservations with the moral message being issued. The scenes of father and son together in both halves of the story have a gentle perfection that gives the film all the beauty it requires, thanks to great performances by Shuji Sano as the grown son and Chishyu Ryo as the father. Amazingly, Ryu was only 38 when he gave this totally believable performance as an aging patriarch -- in fact he barely looks any different than he does in AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON twenty years later!

Slow-moving tale of a father's relation to his son. After a pupil accidentally dies on an excursion, a teacher (Chishu Ryu) retires from services and starts working second rate jobs to provide for his son's education. The movie jumps many years to show the relation of the father and son as the son has come adult. It is a film about sacrifice and duty. The two main characters must live a life apart, given that the son has so fulfill his studying duties and the father is working elsewhere. There are some heartthrob scenes with the small boy and a gentle Ozu melancholy throughout, but I find it not to have very much going for it in terms of theme display or drama compared to other Ozu I have seen, with basically just the two characters. Still, effective film-making on very simple premises. Excellent score – I thought the composer must have been Ozu regular, but was not.

Directed by Yasujirô Ozu Written by Yasujirô Ozu Takao Yanai & Tadao Ikeda Starring: Chishû Ryû, Shûji Sano, Takeshi Sakamoto, Haruhiko Tsuda & Mitsuko Mito

Japanese culture has always been in my interest, and watching old Japanese movies has been a thing I have done for some time now. I started of course with some of Akita Kurosawa's classic samurai-films from the 50's and 60's., in which I mostly enjoyed. Some time ago I stumbled onto director Yasujirô Ozu. I only knew him for his 1954 film, "Tokyo Story". I did some research and found a copy of "There Was a Father" (Original Title "Chchi Ariki"), and watched it a Sunday evening. I could not make up my mind if i thought this movie was some total garbage, or if it was a pure masterpiece / it's either. But one thing is for sure, it stayed on my mind for hours. I came to the conclusion, that I actually really enjoyed it. The film centers around a father, played by Chishû Ryû, and his son, played by Haruhiko Tsuda (and Shûji Sano), and focues on their relationship in a 25-year timetable. There are a few issues with the pace of the film. I'm sure many viewers will consider it boring, because most of the film is just them having a conversation about life and other subjects of matter which all end up being boring. But if you really give it the time to tell the story, it is actually kind of exiting and intriguing to watch and listen to. The film just seems more natural because of the every-day life conversations which they're having. Of course the movie dates back to the middle of WWII, in which Japan was a big part of, but this innocent picture, hides it away for a while, and just pays attention on some of the things that goes on in the familys. On a techinal level, the film is very beautiful shot. Cinematographer, Yûharu Atsuta and director, Yasujirô Ozu takes some wise decisions by having the camera just observe what's happening in the film. It fits the tone very well, and give the viewer time to think about the things the characters disguss in the film. Though, the sound in the film wasn't quiet as good as they are now-days, mostly because this is a more than 70-year old movie. However, it didn't ruin the film. It was easy to ignore.

Though, I would have found the film a bit not my type of film, I really enjoyed watching it. It felt real. It felt like i was there, back in the twentieth century just making observations of the lives of a father and his son. I look very much forward to see more of Yasujirô Ozu work. I am very impressed by this man, even though it's the first film of his I've seen.

I give "There was a Father" 3.5 / 5 stars