Movie Review: Post-war Tokyo in Yasujirou Ozu's "Tokyo Story" (1953)

Photo: Courtesy of New Yorker Films

The movie Tokyo Story (1953), directed by Yasujirou Ozu, illustrates Tokyo after the Second World War, which was a time of restoration, social and cultural changes for Japan. The traditional Japanese life was heavily affected by modernity, resulting in a chaotic period of women starting to work, family structures breaking down and social values shifting (Slater). With the use of the fixed camera and various shoots, Ozu successfully shows Tokyo and the Hirayamas' mixed emotions beneath their cheery smiles.

 

The movie focuses on the lower middle-class of industrialized Tokyo. Following the pillow shots of smokestacks and a train station, a rural background is seen with a signboard, "Hirayama Clinic." The clinic of Koichi, Shukichi, and Tomi's eldest son, is located in a small neighborhood that seems to be far from being modern or city-like. Before going to sleep, the old couple talks about Koichi's neighborhood not being such a nigiyaka area, which means "bustling place" (Davis 86), and mentions that it is far from the station. Koichi even has to work on a Sunday, indicating his economic status. Shige, the eldest daughter, is also not so welcoming. She scolds her husband for buying expensive cakes for her parents, and eventually suggests sending them to a cheap hot spring spa in Atami. Even Noriko, despite her hospitality, does not seem to have a better life than these two, living in a poorer apartment and borrowing sake from her neighbor to serve her parents-in-law.

 

The still shots of the homes of Koichi, Shige, and Noriko seem to capture a stuffy, suffocating interior environment filled with everyday items. Fumiko, Koichi's wife, moves her son's desk to make room for the old couple, showing how cramped their home is. Both Koichi's clinic and Shige's beauty parlor function as homes for their family, indicating that they do not enjoy separate lives from work. Being caught up in life, having their parents stay in their homes is a costly and time-consuming task for them. Before the trip, the old couple imagines Tokyo as only a metropolitan city, equaling it to their children's prosperity. Instead, they find their children without any traditional values of family and committed to urban life, struggling to survive and adjust in a recovering, post-war Tokyo.

 

Metropolitan Tokyo is portrayed through what the old couple sees in a sightseeing bus. Ozu only shows the viewers a few glimpses of the tall city buildings and crowded streets. He also does not use his usual fixed shots for this scene; instead he uses montage shots, focusing on Shukichi and Tomi rubbernecking (Holland). The scene shows the foreign feelings one must have going through an unfamiliar city in a bus. Despite the tour guide's explanation of the "history of the great city," the disjuncture between the old couple and Tokyo can be seen. Even when Noriko and the old couple look out over the city on the roof of a tall building, only the staircase they climb is shown. The old couple can only understand or relate to Tokyo as the places where Koichi, Shige, and Noriko live (Davis 66). This disjuncture can also be seen at Ueno Park, where the old couple becomes homeless and has nowhere to go. The old couple looks out over the city once again but talks about how vast Tokyo is, and how they would never meet again if they get lost. The Hirayamas do not know where they are, but they know they do not belong. What is interesting is that Ueno Park has served as a place for the homeless after the war (Davis 84). Ozu intends the viewers to feel the insecurity, awkwardness, and alienation of the old couple in Tokyo and their sense of dislocation.

 

Tokyo Story presents to the viewers the modernity of the post-war city, with Tokyoites living with the aftermath of the war and struggling to recover from it. Economic difficulties and generation gaps create breakdowns of previously close family relationships. The movie's main theme mono no aware, defined as the act of accepting things, people, places, or situations that are capable of inducing sadness (Holland), is perhaps Ozu's representation of the way people have coped through the social changes of the post-war society and disappointment of life.

 

 

Davis, Darrell William. "Ozu's Mother." Ozu's Tokyo Story. Ed. David Desser. New York: Cambridge UP, 1997. 76-100.

Holland, Norman N. "Yasujiro Ozu, Tokyo Story, Tokyo Monogatari, 1953."

Slater, David H. "Social Class and Social Identity in Postwar Japan." Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society. Ed. Victoria Lyon Bestor and Theodore C. Bester, with Akiko Yamagata. New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. 103-104