Tokyo Twilight

Like Hollywood in the 40s, wrong-doers must get their comeuppance. Defying family is a cardinal sin, and everyone is punished. Contrite decisions are made, as if sacrificing all to maintain the family unit is the only path to redemption. I certainly believe that intense determination is sometimes needed to maintain a relationship. But Tokyo Twilight implies that deciding to give up the fight will result in a generational curse upon your family. That's just not true.

Desolate drama about four characters, comprising the ruins of a family, who are slowly shown to have each long been locked in their own, solitary prison. Great, but I never want to see it again.

An especially dour and grief-stricken film, of burnt bridges and hardened hearts, divergent from this filmmaker's typically sanguine disposition. Of course it's restrained, but it is also confrontational, and simmering with unusual intensity. Ozu's work is always seasonal, and it seems appropriate that this story of discontent is one of his rare pictures set during a harsh winter.

Familiar Ozu: same or similar actors, camera style, characters, subject matter, music, and even titles. But it can rarely be dismissed as remaking the same movie over and over again. Each has a distinctiveness to it, and one element or another in the Ozu stew is tweaked. This one starts out like any of the others but gradually reveals itself to be a much darker and more overtly dramatic film. It's shocking to see characters confront each other so boldly in an Ozu film. Shocking but refreshing.

Darker and, in its understated way, more melodramatic than is usual for Ozu. I am so not the target audience for this...much of the knocked-up sister's behavior I found inexplicable, and I finally decided she just wasn't very bright. But it's executed with Ozu mastery. I also found it odd that for a city as crowded as Tokyo, no one was ever around except the dramatis personae. Equally odd: much of the music sounds like it belongs to a 1950's Italian romantic comedy.

A darker tone was a promising shift, but the central drama failed to be engaging. I did appreciate the marked evolution in both Ozu's filmmaking and Setsuko Hara's acting.

canım dedem kusura bakma ama Kubrick hariç yönetmenlerin yüzde 99'unda olduğu gibi sen de kendini tekrar ediyorsun. bu izlediğim dördüncü filmin yemin ederim 5 yıl sonrası hepsini birbirine karıştırırım. ya oyuncular bile aynı aq. abi bu kadar kolaycı olmayın ya. sadece klişe olduğu için değil aynı zamanda anlam-alt metin olarak da sıkıntılı bir film. gereksiz bir aile güzellemesi. filmde elle tutulur şeyler aşırı gerçekçilik ve görüntü yönetimi ama bu karın doyurmuyor.

The most tragic Ozu film I've seen thus far. There's an almost sadistic elegance from Ozu here; while prodding at our emotions with uncharacteristically (for him) extreme content and dramatic situations, it's only revealed in the final moments how the events have progressed the arcs of the other two protagonists. And then that final music cue kicks in. Beautiful bittersweet. Also, it'd be easy to mistake this as preachy about the importance of "a mother's love", but it's intentionally misleading

Semana em honra do centenário de Setsuko Hara filme #2. Aqui Ozu quase adentra o universo da New Wave e é de fato um produto de seu tempo: desquites, mães solteiras, aborto, adultério, é uma virada de transformação da sociedade japonesa que Ozu capta com maestria, mesmo o final ainda sendo tradicional e domesticado demais. Box Versátil O Cinema de Ozu Volume 1.

Excellent pacing, actors, and characters.

Surprisingly violent display of emotions for what little I've seen of Ozu. His compositions are so assured, his camera so unyieldingly still that it lowers the barrier between character and audience, all the better to appreciate their intensity and complexity.

Suprisingly, this time, instead of marrying daughter off, Ozu *spoiler* killed her off. Refreshing. Seriously though, that ruined the movie for me. It was the easiest and the most disappointing way to end her heartbreaking story which was my FUCKING FAVORITE THING in Ozu oeuvre. Just look at this face on the poster. Everything else was like watching another episode of my least favorite soap opera. Just look at another shot of Setsuko Hara being polite to C. Ryû who will definitely respond "hmm".

Not a master work but clearly the work of a master. That phrase might apply to every Ozu movie that is not a masterwork.

Escorpião

91.50

I don't really get how Ozu can keep re-inventing the wheel with every movie and it be so successful.

Star Rating: ★★★1/2

Talk about underselling your melodrama. Even Ozu's most noir, most mature style doesn't help when the balance he strikes is between the contemplative and the overwrought. And maybe I'd need a Japanese scholar to talk me through what appear to be quite reactionary family politics.

To have never been surpassed in the field you created, despite its critical acclaim and influence, as Yasujiro Ozu has done in his explorations of human intricacy coupled to sociological motifs, is quite a feat.

Yasujiro Ozu #3

A heavier drama than usual for Ozu; perhaps some will feel that his usual subtlety & understatement is somewhat overshadowed by the weighty story. But it's nice to see Ozu let a little more bitter into his bittersweet.

What appears simple in Ozu is really quite complex. In this, the director reflects life as it is, taking an audience along a winding paths that lead to tragedy and if not outright joy, a kind of melancholic hope. The film cuts at just the right moments, Ozu building a rhythm to the many set-up shots, or cutting directly from one scene to another in a way that deepens the significance of the moment (e.g. the cut from the clinic to the baby). Hara is subdued, but wondrous as always.

Darker and more melodramatic that the usual Ozu, and perhaps a little less successful. Still, this is a very good film.

I was really hungover when I watched this, so I figured Ozu's style would be perfect, but I might have been mistaken. The first half showed way too much restraint, even for him, and it didn't start to grow on me 'til the second half, where, while he never broke from his sensibilities, the performances were unusually aggressive. Awfully slow too.

It takes a while for Ozu to get all his story elements into place here, but once everything comes together the real beauty of this story shines through. The rare bits of black comedy perfectly balance the overwhelming drama to create one of Ozu's finer moments.

Perhaps not the best showcase of Ozu's style, but certainly some of his most compelling characters ever created. Just as the subject is darker, the screen itself is darker, too. The low-contrast black and white adds such a perfect tone to the entire film.

Dial into it and you will find this the most depressing and horrible of worlds. thanks Ozu.