YASUJIRÔ OZU

Master of minimalism…

In his lifetime, Ozu was considered “too Japanese” for export. But since his death in 1963, his lovingly detailed studies of Japanese life have come to be recognised, in all their unpretentious simplicity, as some of the most deeply felt accounts of situations everyone can recognise and identify with. Ozu never married and lived most of his life with his mother, but few other filmmakers illuminated family life like he did.

During the war years, Ozu was supposed to direct propaganda movies for the government – but he seemingly found ways of dodging that obligation. Back at Shochiku, his regular studio, he embarked on the run of a dozen films on which his reputation now rests: among them the ‘Noriko’ trilogy – Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953) – named for their lead character, played by Setsuko Hara.

Cutting from one fixed camera position to the next, often focusing on people talking, shot at a height of about three feet, Ozu’s films might seem the last word in austerity. Except that they’re infused with sly, even earthy humour. Good Morning (1959) features three boys obsessed with farting.

Given Ozu’s reputation as the supreme master of visually restrained, low-key ‘home dramas’, it comes as a surprise to view his early work. But in the final years of the silent era (which lasted until 1935 in Japan), he directed a run of lively student comedies, featuring farce, slapstick and agile camera movements – and followed up with a run of action-packed gangster films that betray the influence of contemporary Hollywood.

From the mid-’30s, Ozu narrowed his range to the family dramas he would become famous for, focusing on the joys and trials of middle-class or working-class life: raising kids, finding work, marital disputes, tensions between the generations. Modestly, he compared himself to a tofu salesman, offering nourishing but ordinary wares. But there’s nothing ordinary about his empathetic gaze, his shrewd insights or his formal artistry. PK