Centenary tribute to Yasujiro Ozu

Filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) looking through the camera (in 1952)

Zahir Raihan Film Society has celebrated the birth centenary of this great filmmaker with the screening of two of his masterworks and a documentary on Ozu and the style of his filmmaking, Tokyo-Ga, made by the renowned German filmmaker Wim Wenders. The day-long programme was held at the Goethe Institut Dhaka on Sunday, 14th December 2003 at 4:00 p.m. with the screening of the films Equinox Flower by Ozu, Tokyo-Ga by Wenders, and Tokyo Story by Ozu.

Ozu was born in Tokyo on 12th December 1903. His filmmaking career started at the famous Shochiku Studios in Tokyo as an assistant cameraman in 1923. After becoming assistant director to Tadamoto Okubo, it took less than a year for Ozu to put his first script forward for filming. It was in fact his second script The Sword of Penitence that became his first film as director (and only period piece) in 1927. In his early life as a filmmaker, he was fond of American films and among his early favourites were the films by Ernst Lubitsch. While working at the Shochiku Studios, he saw a lot of Japanese films. But later on, as he was formulating his own style, the early influences faded off. For his style, he said, "I formulated my own directing style in my own head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others … for me there was no such thing as a teacher. I have relied entirely on my own strength."

In a career spanning 36 years from 1927 to 1962, Ozu made 54 films of which only 36 now exist. Ozu's films usually deal with 'eternal, timeless truths' of human nature. They examine the basic struggles that we all face in life: the cycles of birth and death, the transition from childhood to adulthood, and the tension between tradition and modernity. He once said that he had only one theme to deal with in his films - the Japanese family and its dissolution. The titles of his films often emphasise the changing of seasons, a symbolic backdrop for the evolving transitions of human experience. Seen together, Ozu's work amounts to one of the most profound visions of family life in the history of cinema.

His camera hardly moves and for indoor setting, it is always placed in the same position: at about two feet above the floor level, the viewpoint of the Japanese sitting on a 'tatami' mat for a tea ceremony at home, or while meditating, sitting in silence, observing, reaching meaning through extreme simplification. Editing is done in simple cuts, no fades or wipes or dissolves; and there are only static shots without tracking or dollying or pans. That way, he succeeds in presenting the essential Japanese to his audience.

Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari, 1953) is regarded as the crowning achievement in Ozu's career. It is included in the all-time top ten film lists of the film critics, filmmakers and film connoisseurs around the world along with Citizen Kane by Orson Welles, The Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir, The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Dreyer and Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock. Tokyo Story is a sad, simple story of generation conflict where the visit of the elderly parents to their busy, self-absorbed children in Tokyo is met with indifference. This ingratitude only serves to reveal permanent emotional differences, which the parents gracefully accept and then return home.

In Equinox Flower (Higan-Bana, 1958), we see a daughter who marries for love, against the will of her father, who believes that he is the one who should choose a bridegroom for her, in the Japanese tradition of arranged marriages. This film offers a scathing criticism of the father, and as such, the whole Japanese social system that he belongs to. It looks genuinely at the social transformation in Japanese society, when old norms were breaking down, and new ones were taking their place. Much of the force of Equinox Flower derives from Ozu's deep understanding of such situations.

Samma no Aji (An Autumn Afternoon, 1962) was influenced by the death of his mother during filming. Ozu, a bachelor all through his life, had lived with his mother. The film is a serene meditation on ageing and loneliness. Having arranged the marriage of his only daughter, a widower becomes painfully aware of his advanced age and his isolation. Solace is sought in alcohol and drunken comradeship. This film by Ozu was to be his 'swan song'. He died of cancer, a year after its making, on his birthday, on 12th December in 1963.

Many contemporary filmmakers admire and often incorporate his methods in their films. The list includes such stalwarts in the contemporary world cinema like Wim Wenders (Germany), Jim Jarmusch (USA), Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Taiwan) and Adoor Gopalakrishnan (India). As the most Japanese of all filmmakers, Ozu occupies a position in the world cinema as a unique filmmaker, a filmmaker liked and appreciated by the filmmakers.

We pay our tribute to Yasujiro Ozu, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, on his birth centenary.

Sabbir Chowdhury, a film activist, teaches in the Department of English at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka.