You won't be disappointed!

A different way of telling a story

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I was amazed at the agility of the older actors who sat down with such ease on the floor with no wincing or complaining. How is this possible? Everyone in the US can barely pickup a coin on the floor let alone sit comfortably at a very very low table. I conjecture the action in this film is very minimal so that all I could think of is how everyone is so healthy even though the men are at a bar drinking most of the time. Was this an accurate depiction of life in Tokyo or thereabouts to express how calm and peaceful the Japanese are after all the horror stories of WWII???I had to really power through this film as the dialog is very mild and subtle. It is hard to recommend unless this is a fair portrayal of life in the big city and how women were treated like chattel. High Five to the ancients who move with ease, I am impressed with such talent these days.

This film is awash with rich color, much like those of Douglas Sirk in 1950s Hollywood - remarkable, given that this is Ozu's debut effort in color filmmaking. And the film is indeed very much of its time - 1958 and a transition to "contemporary" Japan. In the course of our protagonist's day he goes from an office, with its rows of "company men" toiling over paperwork in a modern high rise, to his traditional home with tatami mats. He sheds his Western clothes each evening by dropping them on the floor (for his wife to pick up) and transforming himself into the stern paterfamilias in his yukata.This is a domestic tale of a man and the three (or four) young women he advises in matters of the heart. No King Lear, this is rather a Japanese "Father Knows Best - not". Travel gently to this non-ironic look at a Japanese family in the era of early "Mad Men", and let the color,time period,and Ozu's visual clarity carry you along.

Businessman Wataru (Shin Saburi) is continually approached by his friends and co-workers for advice and help, especially when it concerns potential marriages for their daughters. He is approached by Mikami (Ozu regular Chisu Ryu) who is concerned that his daughter has gone off with a man from a lesser family with a low-paid job. He agrees to meet her and try to talk some sense into her. One day at work, he is approached by a man named Maniguchi (Keiji Sada) who asks for his daughter's hand in marriage. Wataru is horrified that his daughter Setsuko (Ineko Arima) has been seeing this man without his knowledge, and insists that marrying him is not the right decision.Japanese master is again on familiar ground with this gentle drama. Again, he explores themes of family, and change in a post-war Japanese society. Wataru is not a traditionalist by nature - he is generally quite open-minded, but only when it comes to his friend's families. When he has tea with one of Setsuko's friends, she explains how her mother is obsessed with finding her a match with a man with a decent job and background. Wataru is agreed that her mother is stuck in her ways. It becomes clear that Wataru is simply a father who cannot let go of his daughter. It's a sentiment that anyone, even those without children, can relate to.Ozu does make a point of showing the increasing differences in attitudes between the generations. The parents are children of war. Wataru and his wife Kiyoko (Kinuyo Tanaka) discuss memories of being in the bomb shelters. Ozu doesn't want us to see the elders as narrow-minded and old-fashioned, but instead as people who grew up with danger and death all around them, and clearly hold protection and security in high regard, and for good reason. However, Ozu does show the women of Equinox Flower as the stronger sex, and the biggest advocates for change. Kiyoko tries to change Wataru's mind, but realises that this is a decision he will make on his own.The film is full of Ozu's usual traits, including the usual gorgeous cinematography - and this is his first to be shot in colour. His camera is ever-still, watching from low angles, usually through doorways. He is offering his audience a window into these people's lives, and allows them to give their naturalistic courtesies as they would if no-one was watching. It is a delight watching a true master at work, and it's amazing how he finds fresh and fascinating ways to explore similar themes. I've never seen any of his films that haven't been anything less than brilliant, and I'm still to see his widely celebrated Tokyo Story (1953). An absolute delight.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Ozu is such a pleasure, a quiet one, meditative.The story here is about lives, whether they are arranged and what agency we have in arranging them. Many viewers will suppose that the topic was chosen because of some desire to make a comment about Japanese society.No, its because the filmmaker had turned introspective in his later years. His films are characterized by the way the shots are composed. Each one is a matter of absolute perfection. The perfection is so complete, you have to stop and study. You have to rerun certain scenes to see how amazingly the components arrange. He is the ultimate classical Japanese composer. Sometimes you see that the sets must have been especially built for one setup. Pure geometries and symmetries dominate. The camera is always static.The effect is that what you see has nature. Its natural, human. It flows in much the same languid, undramatic way that life does around us. But what we see is that flow in a highly composed context. Every element in that context naturally occurs but seems to have found its own harmony to please the eye of the viewer. Its the cinematic Japanese garden. There's a subtle thing here. Ordered nature presented so that the human composition seems so in tune with nature that we love it. But it is arranged. It is pure and unnatural too, sort of abstractly sublime.This viewer is a Westerner who works with Japanese concepts of ideal, natural harmony. Watching this makes me cry with a pleasure that avoids being joy.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.