Tôkyô monogatari [Tokyo Story] (1953)
(Criterion Streaming, November 2019) Everyone is free to come up with their own personal top-100 films. Mine is filled with less-than-respectable spectacles, thrills, jokes, and musical numbers. But it’s important to check out the canon of accepted “greatest movies” to see what the fuss is about—and maybe see something different along the way. Many will call Tokyo Story one of the best movies of all time. I notice it doesn’t show up on top-100s, but does pop up on top-250s, 500s and 1000s. You would probably have to expand that to 10,000 if it was to figure on my own top lists, but that’s fine—this is something very different from the usual movie in themes or presentation. For one thing, it’s an early-1950s Japanese film that’s firmly set at that specific time and place, poking at the lasting impact of World War II and the social dislocation in a society transitioning to the western model. If you’re familiar with writer-director Yasujirō Ozu’s body of work, you won’t be surprised to find out that the film is incredibly slow paced, observant, meditative and character-based. The plot isn’t much more than an elderly couple travelling to Tokyo to visit their kids. That would be a safe premise for most filmmakers. But here, Ozu goes for something that is still, seventy years later, not often depicted in film—the very common experience of children rebuffing their parents, not being overly enthusiastic about their presence, and being solely focused on their own lives. It gets worse, because if you’re expecting a heartwarming moment of reconciliation, you’re going to outlast the end credit sequence: one of the leads dies, the kids still don’t care, and the survivor must continue living alone. This isn’t exactly the cheeriest of topics, nor a dramatic arc that makes viewers happy. What’s more, the execution of the film—all static shots and languid editing—won’t make new converts either. But Tokyo Story is an important film and an unusual one. I don’t particularly like it, but I can respect it.