the disappointment
by Douglas Messerli
Kōgo
Noda and Yasujirō Ozu (screenplay), Yasujirō Ozu (director) Tōkyō Monogatari (Tokyo Story) / 1953
The
elderly couple with whom this film begins, Shukichi and Tomi Hirayama (Chishu
Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama), certainly do not seem to be expecting too much as
they prepare for a journey to Tokyo to visit their two children and
daughter-in-law, catching a glimpse in Osaka, along the way, of yet another
son. Like many old couples, they sit packing their bags, gently scolding one
another and occasionally arguing about a missing object. A neighbor stops by,
wishing them a good trip. Their children, we are told, have turned out, particularly
in the post-war period—with one, Koichi (So Yamamura) becoming a pediatrician
with two sons, and a daughter, Shige (Haruko Sugimara) running a hairdressing
salon. A second son in Tokyo has died during the war, leaving his wife, Noriko
(Setsuko Hara) living in poverty; she works as an assistant in a trading
company.

The voyage is a long one, a trip the
elderly parents have never made, but they seem in good spirits and look forward
to encountering the children in the big and slightly frightening city.
Even before they arrive at Koichi’s home
we sense some tensions: as Koichi’s wife, Fumiko (Kuniko Miyake), busily cleans
up, her elder son, Minoru, is irritated with her having moved his desk. He
needs a place to study, he insists, to which she scoffs, “you never study.”
When the grandparents do arrive, both the boy and his younger brother almost
ignore them, accepting none of their loving attentions.
The other members of the family gather at
Koichi’s and Fumiko’s, each bringing small gifts (crackers, tea) but the dinner
is a simple one. Noriko arrives from work a bit late, ready to help out in the
kitchen, but her offers are dismissed by Fumiko and Shige, and it is clear that
neither of the women is particularly fond of her.
Indeed, both Shige and Noriko are made
to feel, at dinner’s end, that they may have stayed too long, as both hurry
home, leaving the older couple, despite their not feeling that tired, to retire
to bed. Their bedtime conversation reveals their amazement that their doctor
son lives in such an isolated and suburban location. He is clearly not as successful
as they had thought him to be.
The next day, Sunday, the entire family is
scheduled to take a tour of downtown Tokyo, but a visit from the father of one
of Koichi’s patients, reporting that his child’s fever remains high, forces
Koichi to have to cancel the trip. His wife, she declares, is also busy and
unable to take them around the city. The children, particularly the elder, are
stubbornly angry at their father’s cancellation of their outing, with Minoru
refusing even to take a walk with his grandmother. It is apparent that part of
Minoru’s rude and disobedient behavior has to do with father’s continued
absences. This is quite obviously not the only outing that has been terminated.
Koichi and Shige, meanwhile, conspire to
send the parents out of town, the two sharing the costs in order that their
parents may stay at a hot spring spa at Atami, while they go on with their
daily lives. Despite the parents’ hopes to spend time with their family in
Tokyo, they are suddenly being sent away to live in isolation just as they have
since their family has grown up.
If until this moment, Tokyo Story has been an extremely polite, even conventional satire
of shifting family relationships, it now becomes a tale of disappointment and
pained resignation that the children they have raised have grown up without
qualities with which they had hoped to have instilled in them. While many
Japanese works play out generational conflicts—most of them centered on values
of the past as opposed to the present—Ozu’s work brilliantly escapes such
simple dichotomies, making it clear that it is not just generational changes at
work here, but failures in personality. Shige, shocked by the couple’s return,
scolds them for not staying at the spa, lying even (although Ozu, once again,
goes out of his way not to not confirm the obvious) in telling them that she is
hosting a gathering of beauticians in her house and has no longer any room for
them.
Like proud vagabonds, now suddenly
homeless, Tomi determines to stay the night with the loving Noriko, while
Shukichi visits the home of an old friend from his hometown, hoping to be
invited in for the night. His friends would gladly have him, but rent out their
spare room. His friend Hattori (Hisao Toake), meeting up with another old
friend, invites Shukichi to a local bar, where the three proceed to get
terribly drunk. In that drunken state, Hattori berates his son, while the other
mourns his children’s death in war; and for a few moments, Shukichi seems in
agreement with them before turning on the other two to declare that perhaps
they are all “expecting too much,” that life in the giant city is economically
difficult and allows the citizens little time for anything or anyone else. The
police ultimately return Shukichi back to Shige’s house. Her anger far out-weighs
any concern for her father’s condition or health.
So does the couple return home. But the
rest of the family soon hears that at Osaka, meeting their son Keizo (Shiro
Osaka), Tomi has become sick and has had to spend a couple of days there before
proceeding home. Soon after, Koichi and Shige receive telegrams reporting that
their mother is seriously ill, and they begrudgingly prepare to travel to the
home where they have never returned. When called, Noriko joins the trek to her
husband’s childhood home.
Tomi dies within the night, cared for by
Kyoko—the couple’s unmarried, school-teacher daughter who has remained in the
small to care for them—and by Noriko. Keizo arrives too late. At the dinner
after the funeral ceremony, Shige demands from Kyoko two of her mother’s
kimonos, as she, Koichi, and Keizo all plan their hurried returns to Toyko and
Osaka. Only Noriko remains for a few days, caring, once more, for her
father-in-law and helping Kyoko. While the parents have said very little in
open condemnation of the selfish children, the quiet Kyoko, once they have
left, speaks out to Noriko of their despicable behavior. Noriko responds far
too kindly, insisting that everyone has their own life to lead, resulting
predictably to a separation between parents and their children. But again, her
own selflessness, reveals the lie to her niceties; and when Kyoko, who has
spoken hardly any words in the entire film, declares life to be “disappointing,”
even the gentle Noriko can only agree.
Recognizing Noriko’s kindnesses to both
him and his wife, the now widowed Shukichi encourages his daughter-in-law, as
Tomi has formerly done, to forget his son and remarry. In appreciation for her
love, he awards her Tomi’s old-fashioned watch, a gift which links her to the
elderly couple’s past while simultaneously freeing her for a new future,
permitting her to move forward in time.
As
critics have noted, however, even here Ozu does not simplify his narrative as
he might have if he ended merely with Noriko traveling back to Tokyo to face
her own future, but, rather, pulls his camera back into the bay outside
Shukichi’s window where we see a ferry, as in the very first scene, shuttling
back and forth. His life will be a lonely one, as he tells his nosey neighbor, “Living
alone like this, the days will get very long.” But Ozu demonstrates, as well,
that life will go on; things predictably continue.
What began as a subtle satire on generational
changes, accordingly, ends, in Ozu’s stunning vision, with a statement of both
tragic resignation (for Shukichi) and transformative resilience (for Noriko and
Kyoko). The others are now free to lead their very ordinary lives.
Los Angeles,
January 10, 2013
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