Yeah, and if alone to fight against Ozu’s gigantic shadow as did Oshima. It’s likely hard to ignore him being a Japanese filmmaker, one of the most recent example of a neo-Ozu film is Kore-eda’s “Still Walking”. There also exists a Pinku Eiga version of Ozu’s dramas called “Abnormal Family”. As for recommendations, you might want to check out “Late Spring” and “Early Summer” next, both are among his most beloved films. The former is a beautiful minimalist study a the separation between father and daughter due to tradition, and the latter is one of his most accomplished family dramas that makes astonishing use of elliptic narration, one of his trademark stylistic elements. I also loved the tragic tale “Tokyo Twilight” which has a dark and moody atmosphere which differs quite a bit from most of his other works. His early works like “The Only Son” are also wonderful as are his late color films, especially his final work “An Autumn Afternoon”. A lot for you to discover.
^^Tokyo Twilight was too melodramatic for my taste
agree with the rest of your post though
@APURSANSAR : I have watched Still Waling which I found to be a fantastic film. The pace, the naturalistic acting and the composition were amazing. I saw a lot of similarities with this and Tokyo Story. In both, character was far more important than plot, which is very refreshing. In terms of plot, not much happens in either.
I hear he has a bunch of silent films that went missing too, don’t know if they’ve been discovered again?? sorry about my ignorance.
PS. I think I’ll pass on the Pinku Eiga ;-)
For his silent you should definitely watch I Was Born But…
I liked Late Autumn….I’d recommend it highly.
Late Spring, obviously.
And check out the beautiful color films: End of Summer & Autumn Afternoon.
Also recommend an earlier silent film called I Was Born, But…
Sorry, one more…Floating Weeds…
Two of Ozu’s most consistently underrated sound films are The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice, and What Did the Lady Forget?.
Also, There Was a Father, and Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family. Those two films are incredibly interesting in particular because they were made under the watchful eye of the militarist Japanese government. These films were heralded by the militarists as the exact film the nation should be making. All the while they were completely unaware, I suppose, of all the questioning and criticizing of the current Japanese state in those works (Brothers and Sisters… because of its treatment of women in Japanese society, and There Was a Father because of its treatment of men).
I really liked Tokyo Twilight.
I wish he had made more films like it (Or did he?).
Early Spring is a progenitor of the issues he explored in Tokyo Twilight (youthful disaffection, at least)… And The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice was a progenitor of that film, and What Did the Lady Forget? was the original in that line of exploration.
Tokyo Twilight is by far his most pessimistic film. Probably followed by Record of a Tenement Gentleman (which has an oddly optimistic and pessimistic ending), Early Spring, The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice and of course What Did the Lady Forget? is a comedy.
Hen in the Wind also has a very dark dissection of post-war devastation. The Munekata Sisters also has a darker turn in it. Though I’m not big on either of those films.
End of Summer and Equinox Flower also explore the growing gap between the elder and younger generations (End of Summer becomes almost farcical in that the most seemingly youthful characters are the oldest ones).
But overall, Tokyo Twilight was an anomaly in his career, mainly because it was his first post-war film to fail commercially and critically. But he did not give up those explorations in his later films. Personally, I think he refined them and explored the same things with much more subtlety and maturity in his later works.
Wow, there really is a lot to discover. Tokyo Story does seem to always be in most people’s top 10, but there sounds like there is a lot of great gems out there of his.
Good thing is, a lot of them aren’t hard to get hold of as BFI now releases them, and on BLU—RAY. what a treat
My favoriite Ozu is Record of a Tenement Gentleman closely followed by I Was Born But. . .
@OP"Good thing is, a lot of them aren’t hard to get hold of as BFI now releases them, and on BLU—RAY. what a treat"
True. The new transfers are quite a long way from the old vhs versions.
Now that most of them are on dvd, I started re-watching Ozu’s films again very recently.
“I Was Born But…” is a great silent, also “Good Morning”, “Floating Weeds” are ones more accessible.
The later films like “Late Autumn” and his last, “An Autumn Afternoon” I thought were underrated, the latter probably one of his best.
Thank you everyone for the recommendations! Just watched Late Spring. Firstly, it is definitely better than Tokyo Story, im not sure which one was later, but Ozu’s pace and subtlety seem nigh on perfect in Late Spring. It would certainly rank in my top 5, and dare I say, remain at number 1.
“Late Spring” predated “Tokyo Story” by about 4 years. I also agree it’s better. In fact, I’m not much a fan of “Tokyo Story.”
I am partial to “End of Summer” simply because it finds humor and amusement in the rhythms of everyday life.
Nom nom nom, oh I’m sorry, I was eating my mushishi salmon. Well, time to place a bet on Tokyo Story. Ha ha! Did you see that? Jarmusch reference! I’m sorry, I always wanted to be a Son of Lee Marvin.
emgenie
Recently watched Tokyo Story and absolutely loved it. Wondering if anyone can suggest some of Ozu’s other films for me to watch? From that film alone, I see were almost every other Japanese film maker gets at least a fraction of their influence from.