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"As soon as we meet, we have to part." Views of the Great Buddha and Mount Fuji duly dwarf the school trip, during which tragedy is tersely stated (rock formations, capsized boat, funeral ceremony). The widowed teacher (Chishu Ryu) must atone for the drowned boy, that means a thoroughgoing education for his son (Haruhiko Tsuda) away from him. Temple, factory and office mark the father's path, meanwhile the lad (Shuji Sano) grows up to lecture on TNT molecules. "Lasting happiness only comes about from the alternation of pleasure and pain." Yasujiro Ozu on the war is the calm eye of a storm, characters speak of enlistment and obedience while the camera captures the resulting emotional fissures. Homesick boys age and give tributes to instructors, old men turn out to be the sole bachelors at the event, "fate is strange." Badger and Little Badger, separated by duty but at one with the world while fishing by the riverside. Butterfly on lampshade, prayers at the household shrine, not rifles but umbrellas by the row. A revision of The Only Son, and of Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The mysterious stillness of the moment while all around the years leap by, the emphasis on imperial authority that turns loving father and son into sporadic acquaintances. Watanabe Kazan paintings are mentioned as examples of "the profound beauty of traditional Japanese art," Ozu prefers the rambunctious tyke who pretends to follow orders to get money to go to the movies. End of the line, an urn of ashes on a train's luggage rack. "Nothing to be sad about. I did the very best I could." Kurosawa in Madadayo evinces a memory or two. With Shin Saburi, Takeshi Sakamoto, Mitsuko Mito, and Shinichi Himori. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |