Nagaya shinshiroku

Japanese drama from Shochiku and director Yasujiro Ozu. Poor second-hand merchant O-Tane (Choko Iida) is put in a tough spot when her neighbors bring her a very young boy (Hohi Aoki) and ask her to take care of him. It seems the child was abandoned, and after searching for some time, no family for him could be found. O-Tane angrily agrees, but her grumpy exterior slowly softens as she spends more time with the quiet child. Also featuring Chishu Ryu, Reikichi Kawamura, Takeshi Sakamoto, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, and Eitaro Ozawa.

This was Ozu's first film after a five year break during WW2. It seems a warm return home, as his style is intact, and many of the same familiar Shochiku players return. Ozu regular Iida gets a spotlight role as the cranky old widow who slowly warms to becoming a surrogate mother. The film is also of interest for its glimpse of post-war Japan, and the struggles and hardships of maintaining a life in the rubble left behind. My only complaint would that, at 71 minutes, it's a bit too short.

A beautiful little film by Ozu, only 72 minutes long, about a young boy who was apparently abandoned by his father. He shacks up with Tané (exquisitely played by Choko Iida) for the first night, but when she can't find his father, he becomes a permanent fixture in her household. At first, she's bitter and mean about it. A middle-age widow, she believes, shouldn't have to deal with snotty-nosed bedwetters. But eventually her resolve weakens and she finds that she has missed a lot by never having had a child. The plotline is predictable and a little cliche (it's the kind of movie that Vittorio de Sica would be criticized relentlessly by trendy critics if he had directed it), but the breezy style of Ozu makes everything wonderful. It's really funny at times, and always very touching. I think it's the most enjoyable Ozu film, with the possible exception of I Was Born But..., that I've ever seen. 9/10.

It's such a shame that Ozu wasn't more of an outdoor director, because I've just found out his landscape shots are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. This is one of Ozu's most beautiful movies.

As always, Chôko Iida is absolutely amazing. It's a beautiful story, with a lot of light, funny moments and tender, emotional ones as well. It's not very different from Ozu's pre-war movies, but as such it's equally beautiful. I was somehow disappointed for Ozu not exploring even more the tenement's habitants, but overall I was satisfied with Chôko Iida performance and the tender story of the bond between her and a child.

This is a simple story about a fortune teller (Chishu Ryu, who 2 years later would be in "Late Spring" looking like he aged 25 years) who brings home a lost boy. No one wants to take over the burden of caring for the kid, but Otane eventually has to (played by Lida Choko). She clearly wants to get rid of him after going to the place where the kid and his father lived, to find out the father deserted him. He wets the bed and thinks she'll throw him out anyway, because she shows no affection for the boy, but gradually warms to him. Ozu's film is simply told, but there is a sociological underpinning to it that is complex. This situation of deserted children in war and post war Japan had to be a significant one and it is told plainly but effectively. In the small community (with wide open spaces where buildings should be), there is camaraderie and that is heartwarming. It is a fairly short film, just 72 minutes, but the length of the film is perfect. Like many of Ozu's films, this features many of the actors/actresses that were in other films of his, but that is good. They know their roles so well and play them well. Not a masterpiece, but a worthy film to watch.

Postwar Ozu, and by contrast to prewar films, little has changed; clear, composed eye, quietly enduring lives, even in the face of near-complete destruction.

Once more, a primary point lies in the edifying fable of the thing. The father is absent, authority if you will, core social integrity, always a looming absence in Ozu, and the orphaned kid will have to rely on the fundamental kindness of the world. Of course that world rises to the occasion, overcomes ego, harshness, in this case no doubt fostered by the hard reality of the times. Instead of scavenging alleys for nails to piece back together destroyed homes, it is asserted that selfless love should take care of that.

This is asserted in a clumsily unsubtle way, straight to the camera. Ozu was back at Shochiku from wartorn Manchuria, and it should not be underestimated, so were many Japanese, back from whatever gruelling role they were forced to play in the war.

To better understand this conservative need for closure, you have to note the way Ozu closes the film. The woman wanting to take care of another orphaned kid is pointed to the direction of Saigo's statue in Ueno Park - where it stands to this day. Saigo was a popular hero famous in conventional history for the last stand of the old samurai faction against plans for a modernized Japan. The ill-advised Tom Cruise film portrays the events.

This is enough to give us pause. Here's a director who had been unerringly forward-looking 15 years ago, had fervently embraced modern foreign film and widely referenced Western mores, no longer a youthful cinephile but sobered from the experience of war, who points for inspiration to this paragon of samurai virtue and ethos. Japan might as well forget the bold experiment with an empire that ended in such humiliating defeat, and look back instead to the simpler times when feudal lords and their police maintained coherence of the world.

This is a pity. The eye is clear but dulled by emotion, making for languid flow but without insight. Japan would have to wait another 10 years for the next generation of forward-looking filmmakers to look deeper into the ruins.