Three by Ozu.

The Only Son (1936), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. I have probably said this before, but I will say it again: Ozu is the most exquisite director I know. His films are consistently intense, minimal, probing, reflexive, painterly, delicate, subtle, and downright beautiful. Ozu’s style is unique, his placement of the camera low and fixed. The Only Son is another film about family, here a family of two, a single mother and her only son. They live in some poverty and the mother hopes to see her son get an education and become a success. The son leaves for school in Tokyo and becomes a night-school teacher, a humble job that pays barely subsistence wages. The shots of the machines at which the mother works are reminders of the daily round of drudgery workers experience. The shots of clothing and fabric hung on clotheslines and flapping like rags in the wind remind us of the fragmentary nature of life lived on the edge. The shot of the mother and son out for a pleasant stroll and sitting not far from a station that burns refuse is a reminder of life’s hopes. This is a quiet film, obviously influenced by the depression, but serving to as a portrait of working people then and now, in Japan and elsewhere. When the son takes his visiting mother on a tour of Tokyo, we see nothing of the bustling city, just a skyline from the fender of the vehicle in which they ride. The Tokyo we do see is a barren land on the city’s periphery that contains refuse, smoke, and chimneys and run-down abodes. The final shot of a closed and locked wooden gate is, perhaps, the most powerful shot in a powerful film.

Equinox Flower (1958), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. This is Ozu's first colour film, and he knows how to use that one spot of red (kettle, afghan, carpet, flower, belt, and so on). This is an amusing contemplation of a changing society. The men are confused, befuddled, and contradictory. The women are smiling and resolute and independent. The women are resolute in a gentle way. Indeed, this film is gentle as well as genteel. The wife patiently picks up after her husband when he comes home from work and takes off his clothes and drops them carelessly on the floor. But she stands her ground when it comes to her daughter's marriage. Ozu is so distinctive. His camera stubbornly refuses to move. He gives us portraits more than movement, and we see things from a consistent level. This level somehow levels everything in a world that strives for an unequal terrain. Style is consistent even if the husband's advice to others is inconsistent with his treatment of his daughter. Style wins the day. So too does a gentle humour.

Floating Weeds (1959), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. This is Ozu's remake of his 1934 version of the story, A Story of Floating Weeds. Once again we have Ozu interested in family dynamic, here a fractured family. An itinerant actor returns with his troup to the place where he has left a woman with whom he fathered a son. The son has only known him as an uncle, the supposed brother of the mother. In short, the leading lady of the acting entourage is not pleased to learn that the man she has been having a relationship with has another woman and a son. Therein lies the drama. But what makes the film so absorbing are the shots of empty space, confining space, and the stubborn insistence of the camera to keep everything still, slow, cornered, straight, and direct. The snippets of the actors' performances remind us how pervasive performance is both on and off the stage. Performance, whether a father performing as an uncle or a young woman performing as a temptress or an actor performing as a street hawker of posters or a barber performing her craft, is bound to lead to complications, unexpected turns, and variations in script, and even a nick of the razor.