Category: JAPANESE FILMS

When someone turns away, with his/her back to you, without a word, you might find it difficult to reconnect with that person. Even if it is not a hostile gesture, just an awkward lapse in conversation or meeting, you have to search for effective, proper words to recapture the person’s attention. Then, it is all the more difficult if the person is shutting down all the external interaction, retreating into the personal void. We have seen a couple of instances of Ryouhei turning his back to “us/camera/father” to express/suppress his painful disappointment. Sometimes, he just loses his gaze into nowhere, …

The climax of the film is staged at the father’s house. The separation of the father and the son, the loss of their own house and the long arc of their sojourn finally land on the domestic scene however temporary. Through most of their lives, privacy has been a luxury. Here, they have the space of their own where they can discuss their private matters in more joyous note. But, alas, it’s only for a brief moment. Among the indoor settings in this film, there are three instances of “upstairs”. Earlier instances are meetings of the father and the son, …

Masahiro Shinoda once worked under Ozu as an assistant director (Tokyo Boshoku). During the shooting, there was a sitting cushion placed on the tatami floor in the set, which was never used by any of the characters in the scene. He asked Ozu what was the meaning of that cushion. Ozu invited Shinoda to the view finder of the camera. “What do you see?”, he asked. There were lines and lines of tatami edge (hen) covering the lower half of the frame. Ozu did not like the tatami edges invading his composition and the cushion was placed to conceal them. …