Le choeur de Tokyo

It is reasonable to read about this period in history, because there are quite a lot of Ozu's films from this time about unemployment. When you understand more about Great Depression then the topic looks more clear to you when you watch the film.

A well-to-do employee of an insurance firm gets a handsome bonus only to get fired for standing up for a laid-off co-worker; his stay-at-home wife, son and daughter (a very young but no less adorable Hideko Takamine) all must contend with the effects of his unemployment. This could very well be re-titled I WORKED, BUT... as it has the same eclectic mix of tones found in that "trilogy", this time ranging from the wistfully ruminative to the starkly violent to the hilariously scatalogical. The film also continues the major theme that preoccupied Ozu at this time, employment as a determinant of social status and self-esteem, while also pointing to the dichotomy of home life vs. office life and how children view their parents which would be explored further in I WAS BORN BUT... It is wonderful to witness the sheer range of devices Ozu employs, from tracking shots to keyhole iris shots, generous helpings of physical slapstick and odd assorted throwaway moments that reveal characters in quirky, intimate ways. With its freewheeling technique examining the foibles and fissures of Japanese society from all angles, this is a major example of the young, robust Ozu at his best.

I don't have much to add to the other fine reviews, just two things:

(I) I rarely like silent films, but this one kept me entertained (and moved) throughout. I guess Ozu is just that good.

(2) There's a fascinating reference by the lead character, a salaryman for an insurance company where business has been slow in Depression-era Tokyo, to "Hoover's policies" not helping Japan as yet. I'm not sure if it was ironic or not -- I'd be surprised if it was meant to be an argument for a more Keynesian policy, but I'm not certain. In a way, I suppose the mention shouldn't come as a shock -- the world economy was sufficiently integrated in the 1930s for US economic policy to have a significant impact on Japan. Still, it was a reminder of, well justified or not, the importance of the US in the outlook of the typical Japanese.

I enjoyed this as much as any Ozu movie that I've ever seen. I think the silent medium inclined the director more to light-heartedness, not that it was ever absent from his films. Near-slapstick leads to genuine pathos on a much more naturalistic way than it ever would in, say, a Chaplin film. Ozu always recognized and appreciated a great face. In his silent films, however, his reliance on the face is much more active, using lighting and framing to convey expression as much as the performers' inherent ability. Ozu may be unique in that the performances in his silent films seem more like "movie acting" in the western sense than do those in his talkies, in which the actors seem more indebted to the tradition of the Japanese stage. But then again, everything about Ozu's early films seems more western. He had not yet become the mandarin we know him as from his peak years. The director's sense of humanity, however, was fully on display. His silent faces rank with Dreyer's, or Rembrandt's for expressiveness.

Tokihiko Okada is a salaryman at an insurance company in Tokyo. He has a wife, Emiko Yagumo, a son, a daughter (played by Hideko Takamine) and a baby. Money is tight, but a bonus is coming his way. Unfortunately for him, a fellow worker is fired in a manner that suggests the boss wants him gone before his pension vests. Okada goes to speak to the boss, gets into a shoving match with him, and is fired himself.

At first it seems that it will be a matter of picking up a new job, but he soon finds himself one of the "Tokyo Chorus" of the unemployed. Matters grow worse and worse...

This movie starts out as a comedy, with Physical Education teacher Tatsuo Saitô terrorizing his students -- including Okada -- like a cop in a Hal Roach comedy writing tickets. As the movie goes on, the tone begins to take on a more serious tone, with outbursts of real problems -- like when Miss Takamine has to go to the hospital -- amidst the comedy, which grows ever more wan. When Okada goes to work for his former teacher, handing out leaflets advertising his restaurant, his wife sees him doing so, and is humiliated; Okada, who starts this movie like Harold Lloyd trying to keep up with the Joneses, has crashed through the floor of the educated middle class, into the lower class; this is not America, where he can be redeemed and restored, but Japan, where appearances are more important than the reality. This is no longer a comedy, but a tragedy.

The print I saw on TCM was certainly not pristine; the titles were worn, and there was extensive chipping. The story was also far more episodic than fluid. This is not the Ozu of the 1950s, but a different one, with slapstick and tracking shots. These last points raise an issue I have been thinking of. Ozu is famous for the way he directed his later movies: long, still takes shot from floor level. Why the change? The late introduction of sound movies into Japan meant that the problems of moving cameras had been solved by the time Ozu made his first sound feature in 1936. He only gradually abandoned tracking shots, and was still using them as late as 1949.

I have concluded that a good movie is composed of story, character, incident and camerawork, and as Ozu entered the 1950s, he settled firmly on character and the interactions between them as his interest. With his often-repeated plots, his people's relationships were the stuff that fascinated him and his audience. Incident (in the form of slapstick comedy) and camera movement were matters that distracted viewers from the people, and made it too easy for them. By removing the overt comedy, Ozu removed the distraction. By removing the camera movement, he made his audience work harder at understanding the characters, which invested them in the process

Anyway, that's my understanding at the moment. What's yours?