This essay directly discusses key plot elements of Ozu Yasujiro’s Tokyo Story.

Some specific films wind up having personal meaning for us. They speak to us in a particular way, or we see them at specific moments in our lives, and they wind up growing in significance to us. In his book Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes discussed the idea of a ‘punctum’: a small detail in a photograph that stands out above all others, like a little wound on the surface of the overall work. I think films can be punctums. I have seen many Japanese films over the decades, but no other film ‘wounded’ me like Tokyo Story.

An elderly couple, Hirayama Shukichi and Tomi (Ryu Chishu and Higashiyama Chieko), take the train up to Tokyo to stay with their adult children. To their busy children they are a mild irritant, and they do their best to fob them off upon one another before paying for them to stay at a relaxation spa out of town instead. The only member of the family to offer them much attention or hospitality at all is Noriko (Hara Setsuko), the widow of their son who was killed during the war.

I had always intended to watch Tokyo Story but, like with many famous films, never seemed to find the time. Eight years ago a remastered print was screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival, which was as good an encouragement as any to finally check the so-called masterpiece out.

A little background to what comes next: a year earlier, in 2015, I travelled to Hong Kong to share a holiday with my elderly parents. My father specifically had become quite frail and unwell, and part of the motivation in travelling with him was that it was likely going to be my final opportunity to do so. While I would never regret the holiday, it had its difficulties. I found the process of negotiating my father irritating in much the same way that the Hirayama siblings do their father in Tokyo Story.

A week before the Melbourne screening of Tokyo Story, and a day before my birthday, my father died. The last time I ever saw him in person was in the departures hall of Hong Kong International Airport.

Midway through Tokyo Story, Hirayama Shukichi dies. It is sudden and unexpected, and his children are left to mourn him and consider the way he irritated them during his holiday. It is a hell of thing with which to be confronted when going to the cinema to take your mind off the grief. It means that above most other films, Tokyo Story holds a particular significance for me. It is an absolute all-time masterpiece, and certainly Ozu’s greatest film, and in all honesty I will probably never watch it again.

In many ways it is a near-impossible film to review anyway. It has always been considered one of the best – arguably the best – Japanese feature films ever produced. At the 2012 Sight & Sound critics survey it supplanted long-running winner Citizen Kane as the single-greatest feature film worldwide. How do you tackle a film that widely revered? How do you even contribute to the discussion beyond nodding?

One of the things that makes Ozu such a remarkable director is the near-unique manner in which he shoots his films. The great Japanese directors of the 1940s and 1950s each had their own particular style: Mizoguchi had his long static takes, Kurosawa had his aggressive American-style rhythms, and Ozu had his slightly unsettling geometric placings. His angles were always straight-on, with conversations often consisting of two characters talking directly to camera in turn. His camera was always placed just a few feet off the floor, and often at right angles to his backgrounds. The 180 degree rule, drilled into generations of filmmaking students around the world, is something he freely ignored. In short, Ozu developed his own highly formal style of directing and stuck to it. It is not precisely the visual language that was used by everyone else, but it certainly worked brilliantly for him. That style, combined with his perennial focus on changing Japanese families – parents from one generation struggling to connect with their children in the next, helped to make Ozu immediately recognisable. You can effectively see any given scene of the majority of his works and recognise the director without having seen the film before.

It is a gentle work, filled with warmth and nicely observed human behaviours. Ozu made films about everyday people and everyday concerns, and it takes a rare talent for a film about ordinary subjects to seem brightly extraordinary to an audience of viewers.

As always Ozu draws wonderful performances from his cast. Ryu Chishu and Higashiyama Chieko are wonderful as the elderly, ever-patient parents. There is a lightness of touch, both in their own private interactions and their conversations with their children. It is representative of the film as a whole. None of the children really want their parents there, but no one is prepared to say it. No one makes a fuss or a scene. It all just gently rubs the wrong way for everybody. It sounds like the film might suffer a lack of drama, but what it really gains is a sense of identification. Most people have had an experience of having a family member arrive at a frustrating or particularly busy time. You do not have to be Japanese to feel Tokyo Story reflecting at least parts of your own life, even if it might not resemble your own as closely as it did mine.

Sugimura Haruko is wonderfully funny and biting as Shige, the impatient and constantly irritated daughter who is much too busy with her beauty salon to tolerate her parents’ presence. One scene, in which an embarrassed policeman drops off her drunken father and two of his friends after a night on the town, is comic gold.

Hara Setsuko shines in her role as devoted daughter-in-law Norika. It is a role Ozu purposefully built for her: warm, honest, earnest, and hopeful. She played variations of this character throughout her career, but she always played it so incredibly well. It is through roles such as this that she became such a notable screen icon, and indeed MIFF’s screening of Tokyo Story formed part of a retrospective season of Hara’s films.

The tone of the film changes so effortlessly when tragedy strikes, and the gentle, fond humour transitions into melancholy. It is a tone that seems to suit Ozu particularly well: his formal structure and carefully presented dialogue allows so much space for depth. So much of his characters think seems to be left unspoken. He is Japan’s most highly regarded film director, and it turns out there is a pretty good reason for that. Is it the best film ever made? I honestly think that is an impossible judgement to make, but one of the best? That, to me, seems certain. Of all the films I have addressed to date in this “Masterpiece” series, Tokyo Story is far and away the most deserving of the title.

There are many good films released around the world every year. Masterpiece celebrates the best of the very best: genuinely superb works of cinema that come with FictionMachine‘s very highest recommendation. If we had our own Criterion Collection, these are the films we would want it to include.