What separates Ozu from many lesser filmmakers (in Japan and elsewhere) is that his gendai-geki films (films about the diurnal do of life, or the infraordinary) show just how unique and interesting the real world is. To fully appreciate his work is to realize that the top of Mount Everest or the South Pole, or the heart of the Amazon, while more exotic than your apartment or garage, is no more real, and that if one stops and fully takes in all that has gone to get one to the particular point one stops, the reality of the ordinary takes on a beauty that is often overlooked.
Ozu demonstrates this from the film’s opening shots of red and white smokestacks at the industrial complex where Hirayama works, and also in the insertion of a televised baseball game in the film. And this recognition of the overlooked is one of the primary functions of great art, to ennoble (or at least enliven) ones perceptions of the real. Part of this is achieved through his famed static ‘tatami mat’-level shots, but it is also done through editing (as much the length of particular shots as it is what is kept and what is discarded), as well as the precision with which Ozu’s actor’s work through their scenes. Yet, despite his technical excellence, Ozu’s films are not offputting to wider audiences, for more so than Kurosawa, and Mizoguchi, his films are laced with humor, often of the lowest brow- but not Lowest Common Denominator.
The success of this blend of the high and the low owes almost all to the marvelous screenplays Ozu scripted with his co-writer, Kogo Noda. The cinematography by Yuharu Atsuta is unobtrusive as ever, in the ozu style. And equally backgrounded are the musical interludes of Kojun Saito.
The DVD is soon to be released by The Criterion Collection, and while it is comparatively light on extra features- vis-à-vis other Criterion releases, as well as others of Ozu by Criterion, there is a good deal of quality in the extras. There is the requisite theatrical trailer, and booklet essays by film critic Geoff Andrew and ubiquitous Japanese film scholar Donald Ritchie. I would have expected Ritchie to provide the audio film commentary track, but, instead, that task is assigned to another Japanese film scholar, David Bordwell.
Bordwell has always been hit and miss as a film critic, and his few audio commentaries reflect that fact. But, this time he’s pretty good, albeit not as natural as Ritchie- a veteran DVD commenter- is. Bordwell is solid, not too didactic, specific to scenes, but a little stiff. He never conveys that he’s stuck to his script, but he never really loosens up and gives the percipient the sense that he really is into the total film experience, either. As stated, good, but not great. Perhaps the best point he makes- and it is one I echo, is that Ozu is not a director concerned with character motivations. He is, in essence, the Method Actor’s nightmare.
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