Admittedly, it was difficult to approach this movie without feeling a little intimidated and anxious. Tokyo Story’s recent Sight and Sound ranking of 3rd most essential film of all time cements its place in canonical film history along the enduring greats Citizen Kane and Vertigo. For its high status on such a prestigious list, I didn’t necessarily know what to expect.
A generational melodrama, I’ll let IMDB’s synopsis explain Tokyo Story’s deceptively simple plot: “An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.” There lies only one real plot driver that advances the picture forward, but it is not in motion that the finesse of Tokyo Story truly exists, but, rather, in stillness.
What at first seems like a novel use of a sedentary camera reveals a delicate dispassion and detachment. Ozu positions us to be witnesses, observing without predisposition through nested framing into the Hirayama’s lives. Despite the tendencies and temperaments of the Hirayama children, Ozu remains utterly neutral in this stillness, never cutting away while someone speaks, positioning them in center frame, on level ground, and often with soft, diffuse lighting.
The screenplay, written by Yasuhiro Ozu, supports this disengagement by never demonizing nor revering one character over another. Even in one of the more objectionable moments, where Shige, played by Haruko Sugimura, demands the mementos of her recently deceased mother, Ozu counters with a heartfelt condolence and defense by Setsuko Hara’s Noriko. Are we meant to find Noriko’s appeal naive or wise?
There is no real core ethos beyond perhaps a consideration for the familial extension of empathy. But this interpretation may grow trying when, even though we are saddened by the grandparents’ neglect, we are not embittered by the committers of the neglect. Though it may seem unfair for Shukichi and Tomi to be viewed as burdensome, their visit is, still, a realistic burden on their children, all of whom have careers, homes, and children to look after.
There exists a simple incompatibility between the lives and expectations of the parents and children – a sharp contrast, punctuated masterfully in the imagery of scenery, that is much like the sharp contrast between the sprawling and booming nature of Tokyo and the quieter, smaller, and slower rural area where the Hirayama’s reside. The spatial distance between the children and their parents multiplies this effect, representing a greater emotional distance that they experience between one another. Their conversations are shallow and brief. Their respective cities and lifestyles are disharmonious to one another. Ozu allows one momentary if not forlorn release for the grandfather, Shukichi, to lament on the changing times. Italicized by composer Takanobu Saito’s graceful score, Shukichi reunites with two old friends, both of which feel similarly disillusioned and displaced by the new-age culture in which they find themselves. They relive old times, swapping stories and speaking on past lovers over cups of sake. In this scene lies a greater truth of the movie: temper your expectations accordingly.
This sentiment painfully echoes in the words of Setsuko Hara’s Noriko, who, in not tempering her own expectations, imparts a somber truism to her younger sister, Kyoko: “isn’t life disappointing?” In reflecting on the past, like Shukichi after the death of his wife, we, perhaps, can help guide our future.