A classic

Since I kept hearing some pretty good about this movie, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even though I definitely could see why this movie has such a stellar reputation, to be honest, I still struggled to really connect with the damned thing. The point is that this movie is actually very simple and very complex at the same time. Indeed, it is simple in the sense that Ozu didn’t use any gimmicks or visual tricks to shot his movie as it was composed of static shots with minimal cuts. In a similar fashion, it was dealing with some average people with no secret agenda or deep secrets and nothing really extraordinary happened to any one of them through the whole duration. And, yet, it was such a complex movie in the sense that Ozu never tells you what the characters are actually thinking or feeling, he doesn’t tell you what he himself is actually thinking or feeling about what is showing to you and he is certainly not telling the viewers what they should be thinking or feeling. It is definitely a nice approach but it is also quite disorienting following years of watching rather dumb US movies in which every piece of information is pretty much spoon-fed to the viewers. Still, what the hell did Ozu mean with his movie?!? The more I think about it, the more I believe that this movie was actually dealing with the meaning of life, no less than that. It might explain why it is still completely relevant even 70 years later for someone like me who was born in Europe and had no direct connection with Japanese culture. Indeed, basically, for the most part of our lives, we will struggle some way or another to connect with other people, even with the people the closest to us. As a result, we are all pretty much very lonely and it is fitting that Noriko, the nicest person in this movie, is actually the loneliest. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really blow me away, it was still a strong movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.