Capturing melancholy on screen  - HH 

I think that one of the geniuses of Ozu is how he can get the tone of the scene so right. There are a few scenes where the emotions of the scene overwhelm me, and today I would like to talk about the scene when the Tumi and her grandchild go for a walk. 

 

The context of the scene is that Koichi is going to take his parents and kids out, but he is caught up with a patient. The whole family is left disappointed. Tumi decides to take both of her grandkids for a walk, but Minoru stubbornly refuses to go because he is upset about not being able to go out. We talked a bit about how Tumi and Shikichi don’t really want to see Tokyo, but the things they want to see above all are their children and grandchildren. This is evident in the fact that even though Tumi does not get to go out and visit Tokyo, she still wants to take her children for a walk. There is a desperation in her effort to connect to the later generations. Throughout this movie, there is barely any connection although it is a movie about family, and the moments of disconnection are highlighted. 

 

We start not directly with a standard establishing shot of Tumi and her grandchild, but the conversation between Shukishi and Fumiko, his daughter-in-law. He points out to Fumiko his wife and the child. Only then we get the establishing shot of them. The right corner of the shot is left open, and the two characters seem small and isolated. On the left corner of the frame, there is a corner of Koichi’s house. The reason why Ozu decides to include that is still a bit vague for me, but it might represent Shukishi’s presence. The scene can also be understood as Shukishi’s point of view also. Then we have a close-up of Tumi when she asks what Isami was going to be when he grew up. She looks happy when she asks that, and I believe that is a genuine question that she wants him to answer. But she got no answer from him. Ozu lingers on the back of the kid who is picking grasses and minding his own business. The audience identify with Tumi in expecting an answer. There was none, and we can feel the desperation and sadness creeping in. The latter questions feel more meant to be for her rather than for the child, because how can a kid understands the concept of death. Tumi looks significantly sadder when she stands up and we come back to a wide shot that we had in the beginning, but now it is added another layer of melancholy, desperation and disconnection. And again, Ozu lingers on this shot and all these emotions sink in even deeper. The music adds to the poignancy of the scene. The whole sequence ends with a shot of Shukishi looking out, Fumiko is no longer in the frame. 


I don't know if I have much things to say but my admiration for Ozu to get the emotional element of the scenes (the bus scene is also another example) so right and precise. We know exactly what we're supposed to feel at a certain moment and we're whole-heartedly submerged in the emotions. This is what it's like to be in the hands of a great director. 



Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshNovember 3, 2021 at 9:47 PM

    Beautifully expressed, HH. The asymmetrical composition of this shot is unforgettable to me. Without the house there, wouldn't we have the two figures tiny on the grassy hill -- insignificant humanity against the backdrop of nature? But the house dwarves them, makes them seem even smaller, and lost -- and we've just been inside this house, uncomfortable as it is! And we know Shukichi is in this part of the house looking out at them, so implicitly he is in there too.

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