I got a long letter from a friend in Canada who’s been (re)watching Kore’eda’s films, and in particular Aruitemo Aruitemo. And absorbing Ozu movies in a way few of us have a chance to. Knowing that my fellow Blockheads are Kore’eda/Ozu fans, with his permission, I share some of his perceptive comments here.
Kore-eda’s Aruitemo Aruitemo is a subtle portrait of the cruelty that sometimes lies behind good Japanese manners, and contains scenes of incredible coldness, as well as ones of great charm and humanity (such as when the mother suggests her daughter-in-law not have any more children, immediately after the apparently heartfelt gesture of giving her a cherished kimono). I think it makes quite a bitter companion to Ozu's Tokyo Story, which was clearly an inspiration. In Tokyo Story, it is the daughter-in-law (played by the utterly charming Setsuko Hara) who is most loyal to the aging parents, whereas in Aruitemo Aruitemo it is the parents that are coldest and most cruel - behind a smiling facade, of course - to the daughter-in-law who wants nothing but to gain their approval for herself and her son. Like the later Ozu, Kore'eda's sympathies appear to be with the younger generation.
Of course, 'reading' Kore-eda is very much helped by being more familiar with Ozu, whose body of work - or the substantial portion of it that is available through the Criterion Collection - I have been working my way through at a feverish pace and with a great deal of pleasure. There's something quite hypnotic about watching film after film on very similar themes, with the same core cast of around 8 actors, constantly swapping roles. One film naturally blends into another, and you begin to feel that these people are your own family; you definitely begin to fall in love with them, and are left feeling strangely abandoned by them when their story ends abruptly with An Autumn Afternoon in 1962. I am particularly fond of Early Summer - it just shows off so much of what is great in Ozu: the gorgeous cinematography (including some stately tracking shots, later abandoned for a purely static cinematography), the inter-generational tensions, the self-confidence of a new generation of post-war Japanese women (and corresponding insecurity and irritability of some of the men!), the Jane Austen-ish obsession with marrying daughters off well, even the impishly authentic portrayal of mischievous and innocently rude little children. But the final few color films are also a great deal of fun.
It's amazing to watch the early B&W talkies, made before the war, with their poverty, disappointment, and austerity, and to contrast all that with the growing affluence - but also the lingering resentments and regrets - of the immediate post-war period, and then the kind of triumph of cheerful materialism in the later films, where - despite the sometimes serious themes - life just looks a hell of a lot more comfortable and fun, for just about everyone. (In contrast to today's Japan, no one appears to be working too hard, fathers are home for evening meals with the family, and bosses freely grant days off for the most trivial engagements.) It's odd to feel nostalgic for something I never experienced, but the world he portrays - and, of course, it is partly a cinematic fiction - is quite attractive in its own way. (I feel no similar attraction to the 50s or 60s in North America, by contrast, and have no taste for the recent spate of extremely sentimental mainstream Japanese nostalgia films about the 50s, like Sunshine Over Sanchome.)
--(Curated by) Julian
I can't believe I've never yet seen an Ozu film, considering how much I love Kore-eda and how obviously (even to me who's never seen an Ozu film!) he's indebted to Ozu. Maybe that will be an autumn fim project for me.
Posted by: Levi Stahl | 07/24/2011 at 08:52 PM
My wife and I watched all of Kore-eda's films over the past month (just like we watched Ozu's ouevre over a year. 'Aruitemo' did indeed resonate most. We felt that the onscreen conversations happen everyday, all across Japan. More than Ozu, I think Kore-eda shares a spirit with Naruse, who aimed his camera into darkened corners.
Posted by: ted | 07/24/2011 at 11:03 PM
Having not watched any Koreeda films (far too new for this old duffer), I can only anticipate the thrill of them having been compared to Ozu. The point made about Ozu's films drawing you into a small, intimate circle of players and characters, where the fiction of roles seems to blend into the reality of the actors, is the most appealing, although shots of the Shonan area in the 1950s is also delightful. There is nothing an observer from the north of England likes better than seeing disappointment, understated sorrow, and frustration played out by decent folk. In the same way that young men in the US, UK, Japan and elsewhere can watch action-packed rubbish about superheroes and feel kindred angst, anger, and thrills, I can smell the atmosphere of Ozu's rooms, wriggle in the protagonists' discomfort, and gaze teary-eyed at Hara Setsuko taking herself and her less-innocent but no less weighty sorrow off to a quiet corner of Kamakura. And this is what makes Ozu so real. Reality imitated art. Hara did just that, and took herself off to a corner of Kamakura to see out her days in obscurity, and as far as is known, that is still what she is doing today. It would be most satisfying to think that she will continue to do so for ever, that this life will be as eternal as those portrayed on the screen, that there will be a corner of Kamakura that will be forever Hara.
Ozu succumed to his lifestyle of drink and fags, dying of cancer at 60, and a corner of Kamakura, Kita-Kamakura, his grave in Enkakuji, remains forever Ozu. Typically for him, and atypically for a temple grave, his headstone is marked 'mu': nothingness.
While the story of Hara and Ozu could be depicted by any director, one feels the Miles Davis melancholic trumpet soundtrack, black and white, stylised approach would be effective and startling, but inappropriate. The same would be true of the rather clumsy, formulaic, TV-based dramatical approach with a classical soundtrack that seems to be the norm for most Japanese cinema these days. Indeed, the only person I know who could do the story justice would be Ozu. But perhaps Koreeda could be the man for the job. Not that he should attempt it. Simply by being considered capable would be enough, for that would imply his ability would be unquestioned. This whets the appetite for his films even more. Let's see.
Posted by: Garren | 08/01/2011 at 12:04 PM
Apologies: a bufoon!
" although shots of the Shonan area in the 1950s is also delightful."
That's not very good England is I.
I don't know how to edit my own postings on another's blog. Or, evidently, how to link plural and singular elements of sentences.
Gahh!
Posted by: Garren | 08/01/2011 at 12:09 PM
Thanks for the comments, Garren. I don't think you can edit comments. In fact, I don't think you can edit comments on your own blog. You have to delete and start over if you've screwed up too badly.
Julian, why don't we sign the mysterious author of these musings on film up. He's good. Have his people talk to our people.
Posted by: David | 08/01/2011 at 01:30 PM