A DARE TO THE WORLD THAT OFFERS NO FUTURE
by Douglas
Messerli
Yasujirō Ozu, Masao Arata, and Tadao Ikeda
(writers), Yasujirō Ozu (director) 東京の宿 (Tōkyō no yado) (An Inn in Tokyo)
/ 1935
Yasujirō
Ozu’s 1935 silent film An Inn in Tokyo—long after most other countries
had switched to talking pictures—is a fascinating film for several reasons,
most notably because, unlike his later tatami-based films, this one is almost
all vertically filmed. Images of urban smoke-stacks, electric generators, water
tanks, and telephone poles dominate this early work, truly contradicting the
notions that Ozu was primarily interested in a Japanese past, based on domestic
relationships that no longer existed.
Secondly, although this movie is centered on a father and his two young sons, it is less a domestic work than it is a social-political statement. Although Italian directors such as Roberto Rosselli, Vittorio De Sica, and Cesare Zavattini are generally perceived as the creators of neo-realism, decades before their creations Ozu’s An Inn in Tokyo presents itself as a far tougher vision of that later cinematic movement than De Sica’s more sentimental and less believable The Bicycle Thief, to which this film is often compared by critics.
This “on the road” drama is a
near-devastating trudge of a man, Kihachi (the wonderful Takeshi Sakamoto),
who, in the Japanese version of the Great Depression, wanders the barren Koto
district of Toyko in search of a job, being turned away again and again by
doormen. So worn out from his sojourn is Kihachi that he has hardly the energy
to argue with their decisions, let alone boast of any abilities he might
possess. With their few remaining provisions in a backpack strapped to his
youngest boy, Zenko’s (Tokkan Kozo) back, they walk forward, as one critic put
it, as if they were on a conveyor belt going in the other direction.
Despite their near-starvation, the boys
often pretend not to be suffering—although you can almost see them swallowing
their lies as if it were bitter rice. The boys, who capture stray dogs who may
be or become infected with rabies, are the only source of this ragtag family’s
ability to sleep in local inns or eat their limited meals.
But these are, of course, children, who, at
times admitting their deep hunger, also desire things they cannot afford. The
elder son Masako wastes one of their dog-catching payments on a soldier’s hat,
which he grudgingly shares with his younger brother—perhaps an early warning of
Japan’s soon-to-be militarism; but when Zenko is commanded to again pick up the
back-pack, he refuses to do so, the two momentarily fighting before together
they leave all they have in the world behind. It is almost a dare to a world
that offers them no future, and little possibility of ever again filling their
bellies.
To divert their despair, at one moment
Kihachi plays a childhood game with them, asking each to imagine what they
would most desire. Critic Allan Fish describes the scene beautifully:
There’s one truly shattering
sequence where poor Kihachi plays
along with his children’s pretend games, pretending to drink
sake as if dining like royalty,
rather than slumped in the dry
grass on the roadside. It’s one
of the most emotional sequences
Ozu ever shot, and certainly the
most emotional sequence in the film,
though the finale, as Kihachi
rushes off and leaves children out
of necessity is also hard to
watch, and the control which Ozu
displays throughout is truly
awe-inspiring. No over-emoting, just
natural real emotions conveyed with both
understatement
and subtlety.
Soon after, the trio arrives at an inn
where they must make the decision whether to use the small sum of money have
left on food or a bed. The boys quickly chose the food; when you’re starved a
comfortable bed must seem like an unnecessary luxury.
Perhaps the only unbelievable moment in this movie is when Kihachi
suddenly discovers that the inn is owned by an old friend, Otsune (Choko Iida),
who not only allows Kihachi and her boys a free room for the night, but helps
him find a job and offers him cheap housing.
Yet this version of Chaplin’s tramp is
equally unlucky in his choices. Meeting an equally suffering woman, Otaka
(Yoshiko Okada) and her daughter Kimiko (Kazuko Ojima), he attempts to help her
as well, with a suggestion of budding love.
At the same Inn, when Kihachi brings her
there for dinner, Otsune helps find Otaka a job in a nearby Sake bar. But when
her daughter develops dysentery, she admits to Kihachi that she cannot pay the
hospital bills. After he unsuccessfully attempts to get a loan for Otaka from
his old friend, the desperate Kihachi steals the needed money, entrusting it to
his sons to deliver it up to Otaka.
Admitting his crime to Otsune, the almost
damned Kihachi finally entrusts his children to his friend as he determinedly heads
off to the police to report his guilt.
We might possibly imagine some lenience;
but we also recognize that it is highly unlikely. The man who had nothing
except his sons, is now without anything or anyone, a sad ending as deeply
profound as Steinbeck’s far more overwrought family saga, The Grapes of
Wrath.
Los
Angeles, January 8, 2020
Reprinted
from World Cinema Review (January 2020).
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