Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo

I saw this film at a special screening at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York City with live piano accompaniment. I'm not sure we needed the piano, this is a really great comedy about two young brothers trying to fit in in a new place. They are faced with two things: Bullies and that they feel their father is a nobody since he works for one of the other neighborhood boy's father. The two brothers are great. The audience, which was a refreshingly large one, laughed freely through the film, as I did.This is my first Ozu film, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It depicts a child's world, what matters to them. It is a great silent film, the pace is good, it never drags. Not to be missed.

This is remarkably gentle stuff, I felt completely exhilarated whilst watching, an intimate openness like being welcomed into someone's home on an afternoon. It helps that it's a silent, they were still making them in Japan by that time albeit usually with what was called a benshi narrating the whole, it abets the languid flow of childhood spring that permeates the whole thing.

It is cleverly structured, again a gentle touch but carefully applied; two brothers new on the block have to carve their own space while fending off a gang of bullies, this is mirrored in the adult world by having their father similarly have to struggle for advancement in the working place.

The extra layer is our insight into the beginnings of the Showa period; capitalist industrialization is intensified, Western styles increasingly applied over traditional mores. The adults are smartly dressed in suits, wear hats, smoke cigars. The family's house is situated on the side of railroad tracks, now and then trains come shooting off in the back of the frame, constant reminders of a modern life lunging forwards.

Again this is cleverly mirrored in the weave of the film itself, the specific image of the house by the tracks recalling La Roue, a French film that had spoken very clearly to the Japanese with its transient world of circular suffering. The whole carries hues of Chaplin's bittersweet whimsy, with a mobile camera derived from Sternberg, another favorite of early Japanese filmmakers. There is no benshi narrating this, just the intertitles, another Western norm.

Having just asserted power in their microcosm, the kids eventually discover that their father is a servile buffoon, a kind of court jester at the office; this revelation tearing down the facade of respectability the kids were looking up to, implicitly posits the whole working structure to be feudal, with the capitalist boss as just another kind of daimyo surrounded by fawning servants. This happens in a superb scene where everyone is gathered at the house of the boss to watch this newfangled thing called the movies. So it is the cinematic reflection that reveals truth, it was exciting to discover this moment of self-reference in a Japanese film of the time.

So even though Ozu's name usually brings to mind connotations of a purity distilled from tradition, this is breezy stuff, attuned with an emerging film culture abroad, explicitly modern in view and subject matter.

And knowing what we do now, there is biting commentary in the parting notion; asked what they want to do when they grow up, the two brothers very seriously assert that they want to be generals. The Japanese army had just invaded Manchuria the previous year.

I am so glad that I ran into this movie. It left such an impression on me. The way it ended was so suprising. The boy's father was such a nice guy, and how that boy could be ashamed of him like that was really something else. It just left me in tears in the end of the movie. It makes me realize what our parents had to do to make a good living, even if it takes having to sell out your pride. His father did it because he loved his family. There is a lesson to be learned in this, and I would recommend this film in a heartbeat!

Put in simple terms, this is one of the greatest silent movies ever made. Though the film was intended to be screened with live voice-over by a benshi narrator, this masterpiece works stunningly well without sound, because Ozu's

unparalleled sense of visual rhythm, choreographed movement, and humor

keep one's eyes dancing in delight. The story concerns two boys who fight their way to gain status and respect among the local bullies, only to realize that their father is a bottom-feeder among the adults. As such it's loaded with acute

observations of Japanese society, and not without Ozu's penchant for subtle but potent criticism. For people who are used to the "slow" Ozu of the 50s, this film will be a revelation, inspiring speculation as to how and why he changed a style that already was exceptional.

To say that I Was Born, But…is funny and charming is like saying The Godfather is a crime drama. It is that but much more. Featuring outstanding child performances, this silent film by the great Yasijiro Ozu is both a satire on the rigid structure of Japanese society and a coming-of-age story about children learning to live in a less than perfect world. It is an enduring masterpiece that has maintained its universal appeal over the years.

In the film, eight-year old Keichi (Tomio Aoki) and his ten-year old brother Ryoichi (Hideo Sugawara) come to live in a small town in the suburbs of Tokyo after their father, Mr. Yoshii (Tatsuo Saito), an office clerk, receives a promotion. The transition to the suburbs, however, is not smooth. Neighborhood bullies taunt the boys, but they soon gain the upper hand with the help of a delivery boy (Shoichi Kojufita) who sends the main bully home crying. One of the neighborhood boys is Taro (Kato), the son of their father's employer Mr. Iwasaki (Takeshi Sakamoto) who seems to always be dressed in a black suit, befitting his station in life. The boys' behavior mirrors the adults with their games and power strategies including the very funny "resurrection" ritual.

The two boys' are in awe of their father and consider him great; however, their loyalty is tested when they see him clowning and acting like a buffoon in front of his employer while watching home movies at Iwasaki's home. Mr. Yoshii explains later that as Iwasaki owns the company where he works, he has to treat him with respect. In disgust the boys ask if they will have to bow to their friend Taro, the boss's son, when he grows up. Resentful after a spanking and dissatisfied with the answers they have received to their questions, they go on a hunger strike but it is short lived. After the father talks with them about the meaning of being an employee, everyone learns something about the realities of life.

Ozu seems to endorse acceptance of the status quo but, on reflection, it seems he is merely making observations rather than judgments. He is critical of the father for kowtowing to his employer, yet also sympathetic with the realities the family must face. The children have lost their innocence and must accept the fact that life isn't fair, but they also see that happiness can be achieved by rising above their prescribed status. Sadly, many of the boys shown in the movie had to fight and die in a bloody war only ten years later, in part a consequence of the rigid social structure Ozu satirized in the film.