Back in October last year, i discovered "Tokyo stories" a Japanese cinematic masterpiece directed by Yasujiro Ozu. I wrote about it in my blog and promised myself to watch more movies from this master of Japanese cinema. Five months later, i have seen half a dozen of his works and i will be writing further in the near future.
Today, my intention is to write about the mysterious simplicity of Ozu. First his name is simple yet mysterious; just a "Z" and two vowels; "O" and "U". He was born December 12 1903 and died on December 12 1963. He was a bachelor who lived with his mother for sixty years and died just three months after she passed away. He made fifty four films, all but three for the same producer. He didn't make his first talking picture until 1936, six years after everyone else. His first color film was made in 1958 later than all his colleagues. So it's a sort of refusal to budge, a stability and equilibrium. That's the first thing that strikes us about Ozu. There is also his style. After 1940, he always refused to move his camera keeping it stationary and just a few centimetres off the ground where daily Japanese life takes place.
His films titles all seem alike. They can be easily confused; "Early Spring", "Early Summer", "Late Autumn", "An Autumn Afternoon". It's as if he kept making the same film always about the Japanese family, marital relationships, the old and the young, work and family. It's all very intriguing and also utterly simple. It's not difficult to enter in Ozu's world. Maybe at first it may appear a bit slow and the lack of camera movements may cause a certain passivity however relationships can be universal and familiar to all of us. Ozu's reflection on Zen philosophy about the non-existence of the future because it's unreal and untouchable nor the past because it's over brings the present as the crucial moment of intensity and fullness.
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