Talking
with a friend about movies made me remember scenes from classical Japanese
movies. I didn’t expect to be exchanging opinions with somebody about Ozu
Yasujiro’s movies and, in general, Japanese cinema in the 1950es. I remembered
some characters and the atmospheres portrayed. I kind of liked the aura of
simplicity that transcended the story, as well, as some kind of beauty that
scented the daily lives of the characters. I wonder if the same stories, filmed
in western culture settings would have been the same. I don’t really think so.
Then, these
days the media talk about Tokyo Kazoku (東京家族) in cinemas. This modern film, by
Yamada Yoji, was described as a remake, very positively by many critics (and
not so positively by others, obviously). It all made me think again about the
feelings mentioned above. Even though the action takes place in modern Tokyo, I
do believe there’s still something that can reminds us of the atmospheres and
characters in the classical Ozu movies. I sort of idealise the 1950es
simplicity in general because, from today’s perspective, people seemed to give
a different value to things and to other people. True... Societies back then were much more conservative, but
there are many precious things beyond conservative-liberal values (much more
beyond prejudices, inequality, discrimination, etc.) which are hard to find
nowadays in the way we treat things and people. Those old movies brought always
to my mind the expression “物持ちがいい” (ものもちがいい, mono mochi ga ii), which refers to handling and
keeping something carefully. I’d say
that there’s some of it to be found in the film by Yamada...but there’ll be for
sure a lot that reminds us of rush-throw when
useless-replace-violence-shallowness coming from the younger characters and the
westernization since the context is radically different. Would Ozu have kept
the essence of his films if he was to film something nowadays? What a
hypothesis. I guess I’ll end up watching Tokyo Kazoku...
