I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Extremely poignant, honest and humbling drama about parenthood. It's lost none of its power. Ozu doesn't sentimentalize or condemn; he merely observes human nature with calm and clarity. The director paints in delicate watercolour emotions, in which the viewer glimpses pain and joy, tenderness and mystery from simplicity and reticence. The central question, universal: How do we look after our elderly parents as they confront all manner of emotions about their own deaths?

Tokyo Story (Japanese: Tôkyô monogatari) (1953) An earnest story, Parents' final visit with Ungrateful children. Elegiacally shot, Timeless tale with much to teach. I tried really tried, To love this critic's darling. Though praised Ozu's art, Pendulum's steadfast slow pace, Characters hard to relate. Somonka is a form of poetry that is essentially two tanka poems (the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format), the second stanza a response to the first. Traditionally, each is a love letter and it requires two authors, but sometimes a poet takes on two personas. My somonka will be a love/hate letter to this film? #Somonka #PoemReview

An elderly couple head to Tokyo to spend a few days with their children and grandchildren. While their children are initially glad to see them, and the parents are models of patience and pleasantness, the novelty wears off pretty quickly for the children and they soon view the parents as a hindrance more than anything else. Then an event highlights the divide between the two generations...Engaging and emotional drama from famed Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. It wasn't always looking like it was going to be that great though. While always engaging, the pace is very slow at the beginning. The first 60% or so is all scene-setting - Act 1 essentially. Things ramp up once the aforementioned event occurs, and this makes the wait worth while.Quite emotional, ultimately, and quite balanced in its views. It looked like it was going to be fairly judgmental in its observations, but the final few scenes add a different perspective. Having a character that was able to see both sides of the issue helped a lot.Not quite the masterpiece it is made out to be, but very good nevertheless.

This is a beautiful film, carefully and lovingly directed by Yasujiro Ozu, with a very basic story that conveys very profound messages on several different levels, the highest being the awareness of life's deepest disappointments, not only by those in the final years of their lives but by those who experience devastating loss at a young age as well. On a different but related level, this is one of the most successful and most effective depictions of life in post-World War II Japan that I have ever seen. The war, with enormously traumatic and devastating consequences to the people of Japan, had ended only eight years earlier.Although I am not an expert at the "tatami-mat" camera shot, which is taken from the floor to the ceiling of the several interior rooms, almost every scene seemed like a framed painting to me with the central characters deliberately placed in specific positions that strongly conveyed a statement about their cultural, social or emotional status through the artistic means of understatement. The emphasis was on their emotional circumstance, which pertained not only to the universal human condition of aging itself but to this critical recovery period of Japanese modern history, which, to me, is very significant in its own right.I regret that other reviewers apparently have never been immersed in Japanese culture, including exposure to uniquely Japanese mannerisms and ways of speaking, as I was for three years of my life because these folks were obviously distracted by mere superficiality to the point that they could not appreciate this film as the timeless cinematic masterpiece that it is.Other reviews have sufficiently described the simple story, so I won't repeat what has already been written. The segment of the elderly couple being shipped to the inappropriately "lively" Atami spa/resort deliberately emphasized how disconnected the couple's children were to their basic needs and desires in the closing stage of their lives to the point that their "well intentional" decisions actually caused at least one of their parents serious, physical harm. Beyond the film's very important theme concerning the universal, human condition of being insensitively discarded by society and family before the end of life, another significant aspect of the film is the very subtle but compelling message of the cost of war to Japan. We witness this in the pathetic reunion of the elderly drinking buddies as they discuss the loss of their sons to the war, and, even more forcefully, we feel it through the sad loss experienced by Noriko, the kind, devoted daughter-in-law, as if we are living her deep sorrow firsthand. Accolades to the beautiful Setsuko Hara, who portrayed the role so impeccably. Through all of the sad beauty within her and around her, how could we not fall in love with her by the end of the movie? Have you ever met anyone with such inner beauty in real life or is Noriko someone who can only exist in the wonderful world of the cinema?