Word: ozu
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Such was not the case in the country’s earlier, perhaps more xenophobic days. The films of director Yasujiro Ozu, made between 1929 and 1962, were long thought to be too nuanced for the international market. Unlike Kurosawa, whose films featured samurai and other overtly stereotyped Japanese characters and plots, Ozu put his films in a contemporary setting and focused on more universal themes such as youth and aging, or more mundane topics such as the Japanese family dynamic. It wasn’t until the 1970s that theaters started screening his films outside his native country. Until...
...Harvard Film Archive (HFA) screened the first film in a lengthy retrospective of Ozu’s work, which continues through to the beginning of next month, concluding on May 11 with Ozu’s final work, An Autumn Afternoon. The comprehensive retrospective, dubbed “Yasujiro Ozu: A Centennial Celebration,” includes nearly all of Ozu’s work produced in a roughly 30-year period, including 11 of his early silent films...
...Yasujiro Ozu festival finishes up at the HFA, take a chance on this classic 1932 silent, a favorite of knowing Ozuphiles like director Wim Wenders, writer Phillip Lopate and movie critic Donald Richie. Like much Ozu, this film deals with the interplay within a family: raised in the suburbs, kids are bullied by better-off children. The bullies particularly delight in pointing out the father’s middle-management position. In retaliation, the kids become bullies themselves and begin protesting their parents’ mediocrity. The real treat, however, is live Benshi (narrators of silent films) narration by Midori...
...those who like their Ozu in color, this late-period work—his first in color—from 1958 has come to the very complete Harvard Film Archive Ozu festival. The intriguing family dynamics concern an independent daughter—it is the 50s after all and women are finding their place—who refuses her more traditional father’s plan of an arranged marriage. Beyond the plot, however, Ozu’s movies are special for their interest in color—in this case, red (Ozu’s favorite color...
...Yasujiro Ozu festival at the HFA continues with this 1941 classic look at a once-powerful families’ decline, in the mold of The Magnificent Ambersons. After the Toda’s father suddenly dies, the children are left with no option but to sell their once opulent villa in order to support their mother. However, as money is, the proceeds are quickly spent by the children’s own families. Soon, the mother is passed around like a morbid game of hot potato from child’s house to child’s house, carrying...