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Cycles of rebelliousness and conformity, beginning with military exercises and an instructor (Tatsuo Saito) armed with mustache and pocketbook. The shirtless goofball (Tokihiko Okada) becomes a family man at the insurance company, he wears a Harold Lloyd boater hat to the office and stands up for the seasoned clerk (Takeshi Sakamoto), who's getting sacked because his clients die much too soon. (Ray in Mahanagar remembers the confrontation with the boss, "turns out this is my last day, too.") His son (Hideo Sugawara) wants a bicycle but instead gets a scooter, vexed he pokes holes on shoji screens, his daughter (Hideko Takamine) is a bouncy imp briefly stilled by spoiled cake. Cooling their heels on a job hunt, the adults look at them with envy: "Children are lucky. They can just bawl their heads off." A prime Yasujiro Ozu comedy, jolly and triste, wise and generous with toilet jokes. Pupil and teacher meet again when the former drill master opens a restaurant, lugging advertising banners ("Calorie Café—Our portions really fill you up!") are the marching orders. (A POV shot from a moving trolley gives Emiko Yagumo's gaze as the mortified missus.) Amid the gags is a pencil sharpened by an electric fan, a jibe at Hoover's policies, and a diagonal pan reused across different gaggles of men—slovenly grunts, nervous salarymen, scratchy vagrants, and finally reunited chums. The titular chorus is for a bittersweet anthem about the passage of time, warbled vigorously as a way to keep tears at bay. "Friends, we shall miss your youthful faces..." Hou's episode in The Sandwich Man pays affectionate tribute. With Choko Iida, Reiko Tani, Isamu Yamaguchi, and Kenichi Miyajima. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |