Mi sono laureato, ma...

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.

This about a man who has just graduated from university, but cant get a job, is too short to really do much except for conveying Ozu's genuine love for people and everyday life. Not at all an expert on silents, but I bet that not many directors where so down to earth at that time. From the German expressionist films I have seen ('Nibelungen', 'Nosferatu', 'Metropolis' and so on) this is quite a revolution. As the Germans take the drama and the romantic very far, Ozu stays at home with real people. While the Germans are Wagnerian, Ozu is far more subtle.

His device of storytelling lies mostly in the interaction of the characters with little to come in between each scene. Most are shot indoors.

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.

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 college graduate is unable to find a job but tries to hide his unemployment from his wife and fiancee. Though only 11 minutes of fragments is all that remains of Ozu's initial entry in the "I Verbed, But..." series, it still plays rather coherently.