Peccary Gloves: An Ozu Blog

 What is happiness? These two old couples are packing up for the most important things in their life to see their children. They haven’t met them for a long time. Maybe in 12 years, they haven’t visited their parents. For the kids, their parents’ visit means they need to make time for them. But for the parents, this trip will be a meaningful trip. If life is a list, this trip will be on that list, and seeing children will be part of the old couple’s ultimate happiness. Seeing their kids can complete their life and their life will be fulfilled and ready to face death. Even Shukichi and Tomi feel comfortable in their house, but the completeness of life does not makeup only by comfortableness. So, will this trip be the trip of happiness? We know that the first people that complained about this trip are the two sons of Koichi. Everyone in the house has his own place. Kids have study places, placing place and Koichi’s wife usually occupies the kitchen. But when Shukichi and Tomi com...

 Editing Tempo: The editing of the film is strange. Wang’s camera looks like time-lapse photography, which creates a weird tempo of the film. The camera moves really fast when the blonde woman and the first cop are running. The fast running, neon light, and time-lapse effect create a dizzy feeling. The opening shot closely follows the blonde woman. After the fast shot, it is a still shot of some chimneys. Only clouds are moving. Then, we have a fast shot of the first cop, 233 runs. He bumped into a man that carries a fake blonde woman. 233 starts to pay attention to the blond fake man. Suddenly, he starts to chase a man whose head is covered by a paper bag. The camera moves to the opposite street and the audience can only see 233 running but the side walkers are all blended into a time-lapsed blurry background. When the camera follows the running 233, it moves very quickly; when the shot is taken across the street, it moves very slowly. These two points of view are alternating...

 What is Tokyo? We never see Tokyo in a bird’s eye. If this movie is not just about the family of Hirayama, maybe it is the epitome of most families in Tokyo. But what does Tokyo mean to the old couples? In the movies, we only see that the old couples being moved from one place to another place. The next stop is always waiting for them. Tokyo is not a contextual space for old couples. Even when Noriko gives a tour guide to Tomi and Shukichi, the old couples do not walk around Tokyo by themselves and do not have a first-hand experience about Tokyo. Tokyo is still an empty concept for them. For the audience, we know Tomi and Shukichi sit in the city bus but we cannot really see Tokyo. We only see the subway station and the front of an old monument. Ozu filmed this movie after World War two, so Tokyo that the old couple visited was in the post-war period. Reconstruction erases the traditional values and appearance of Tokyo. Thus, Tokyo can be without reference and context for i...

 what is the meaning of the train? At the beginning of Tokyo Story, Ozu gives us some still shots, such as the passing of the train. Throughout the whole film, almost all the transportation are trains. At the end of the movie, one of the closing shots is also a train. If a train has more meaning than transportation, what will that be? The old couple travel to Tokyo by train. A train is a box that carries people to different physical spaces. However, the physical transportation is insufficient to carry the old couple into their children’s hearts. The physical distance and forming of new families already separate the old couple from their children. Kōichi Hirayama, Shige Kaneko and Keizō Hirayama do not make time for their parents visit. Their actions show that the separation of parents and children cannot be overcome by trains. The path of the trains carves geological terrains. From bird's views, trains’ paths look like the path of blood vessels. Maybe train means the continuu...

Why do we even watch movies? Shouldn’t we be reading, or making something, making love, eating or, best of all, sleeping? What is it about movies that keeps me awake? Literally, why do I lose sleep to watch them (and also, to be fair, the occasional novel)? There is something magical, and more encompassing, than say, looking at a painting or photograph or, yes, reading. And which is the nearest thing to a movie? Pictures, paintings or photos, as a movie is made of a bunch of them (and yes, there is a movie that is entirely painted frames—it’s about van Gogh.) Or novels with their stories? Or is it a soundtrack?  Because the first thing is, movies have audio, which of course, music also has. But I’m not one for listening to music. It’s background noise. I'd rather nap or let my mind wander for 90 seconds before starting something. Ozu, generally, uses music like the 90s food pyramid said to use fats and sugar: sparingly. It’s awesome. Sometimes it adds to the...

     There are plenty of discussions and analysis on the Noh play scene in Late Spring . The idea that the lyrics embody a sense of change and transient nature of life, while Noriko finds resistance within herself to accept the change is very helpful. It shows the contrast between what happens on stage and what happens in the audience. Nevertheless, another idea pointed out that for us, Noriko herself is on stage as well, both the stage set up on screen and the stage of her life ("All the world's a stage" -- Billy Shaky). Later on in the film her wedding dress in some way resembles the main character's costume in the Noh play, which, raises another possible interpretation of the scene in terms of Noriko's resistance. It is possible that apart from feeling invaded by the potential new wife and potential new life of her father's, Noriko also feels reluctant to dress up like the character on stage and take on the role of a wife.       Furthermore, the sev...

       The restaurant owner and the casket maker in Yojimbo can be seen respectively as symbolic representations of life and death. Food is business for the living and casket is business for the dead. If we take a closer look at the protagonist's interactions with these two characters, we can see the entire movie as a dance of life and death.      The first place the protagonist sets his foot in is the restaurant, it implies that what awaits him here is life. He will live through the end. Yet the casket maker is just next door to the restaurant. The vicinity of these two establishments signifies the vicinity of life and death in this town. The fact that the casket maker has the only profiting business in town also embodies the stronger presence of death. And again the very presence of death is also reflected in the restaurant owner's constant frustration. This is the place where the dance begins.      The initial interaction between the ...

(This post was supposed to be a comment on Ms. Long's post Why Is ChungKing Express More Than A Stylish Music Video . Due to technical issues the comment was not able to be posted, and due to cerebral issues the ideas in the comment was not able to be fully expressed within 200 words. Thus the following --)      It is interesting how the English translation of the movie title is "ChungKing Express", while the original Chinese title of the film is "ChungKing Forest". The English title indicates a sense of motion while the Chinese title delivers a sense of stillness, denseness, and lost. If we indulge ourselves to over-analyze these two different titles, we can see how the same film can be interpreted as two different stories, from two different perspectives of the Eastern and the Western mind.     Speaking of the direction of motion, "express" moves in a horizontal manner while "forest" moves vertically. The former denotes a sense of moving...

 One question that has been kicking around in the back of my mind since Tokyo Story, and through all the movies is-Why does he consistently use these still shots of unanimate things, especially at times extremeley charged with human emotion (the sunset in Tokyo Story, the Wheat in Early Summer, the Vase and Zen garden in Late Autumn, etc...). Why the urge to "look away"?     While looking through youtube, I found a video essay on the meaning of the vase shot (a channel recommended to me by Ms. Ha). I'll put the link in here, and I'd love to hear people's thoughts on it. One comment that struck me was an observation, that during very emotionally charged moments, rarely do we stare laser-like at the person we're talking to. The emotionality of the moment is so much, that perhaps it is too much to handle. The look away helps us process it.  What could she be feeling? I was out walking today, and felt this question bouncing around still in my head. I tried imagini...

The end of Late Autumn: At first, I thought Yukiko is the kind of people for whom life is simple. She has a clear business mind, so that she is not bothered by her parent's remarrying as much as Ayako. And it accords with Shuzo's comment later on, that "Girls like that are good sometimes, the sentimental ones are trouble." But after rewatching the movie I realize that actually Akiko is the simplest character in Late Autumn, because for her to live is not about to be but simply being. "Akiko is the most selfish person in the movie. Yukiko solves problems for her friend, but when did Akiko do anything for anyone?" Mr. LM was right about his observation above, because Akiko indeed never strives for anything. But what if Akiko is right? What if life is really simple, and does not need to be solved? In my opinion, Akiko preserves her maternal bond with Aytako through wu-wei (non-action). Because she is not pushing anything forward,  Late Autumn (秋日和) doesn't...

 HongKong, especially ChungKing Mansions, where Wong Kar-wai chooses as the main filming location and references in the title, is not your usual choice of a romance background. It lacks soothing landscapes and private space. You can't find an equivalent of Ozu's household in ChongKing Mansions, because it is crowded, modern, and diverse. And while Ozu's characters sharing the same traditional dilemma of taking care of parents or getting married under the same names, many of Wong Kar-wai's characters are nameless, and "eccentric."  I call them "eccentric," not because they are wierdos in nature, but based on the fact that they are excluded from the ordinary social storytelling. They are so used to be ignored by the mainstream, that somehow they have to camp it up a bit to be recognized, instead of simply living their lives. They have to act, not for the fame of being superstars, but for a chance of living as everyone else. They are drug dealers, polic...

  Chungking express is definitely different from the Ozu’s movies that we have seen in every way imaginable: the characters, the camera movement, the design and settings, and the music. I would be very interested in talking about this movie because we didn’t have time to talk about it in class at all, but if you could comment your thoughts on the movie – something you like about it, a question, a difference from Ozu that you observe, that’ll be great. I’ll start. I think the biggest appeal coming from this movie is its unique style. Wang Kar Wai has such a particular aesthetic that once you see it, you can recognize it immediately. In Chungking express, he uses a lot of tilted angles and we cannot deny the fact that the chasing sequences with slightly blurry images, stop-motions, and panic POV are a feast to the sight. The set design also contributes greatly to the seduction of the movie: the nostalgic neon lights, the chaos and liveliness of crowded markets, the lonely late nigh...

 We have seen Ozu frequently employ ellipsis (the deliberate omission of a scene or occurrence) in his films. This is a common narrative tool, and often lets the story glide over events that have little or no significance. Ozu, though, uses it differently: many of the scenes he leaves out of his films seem hugely important to their plots - Noriko's wedding, for example, or the other Noriko's wedding, or Tomi's funeral. Besides this narrative ellipsis, though, Ozu's films often have a kind of ellipsis of characters, in which important characters are absent, either through not appearing onscreen or through being dead or missing.  In Early Summer , for example, Noriko's threatened fiancé Mr Manabe is something of an apocryphal figure, as the audience never sees him. At first, this reflects Noriko's experience, since she does not meet him either; we see the people around Noriko become more and more fixated on this theoretical Manabe, collecting empty information abo...

Late Spring   I said that  Early Summer  Noriko was immature, but not in a bad way.  Late Spring  Noriko, on the other hand,  is  immature in a bad way. She and  Tokyo Story  Noriko share some  similar characteristics. While this Noriko  isn’t quite so hermit-like, she still shows no desire to change her  rather solitary  lifestyle . Unlike  Early Summer  Noriko,  Late Spring  Noriko doesn’t have a job or m uch of a social life outside the home  (besides  her friend  Aya). She certainly doesn’t go out to parties and cafes  with friends  on a regular basis . The war has perhaps had more of an impact on her than on  Early Summer  Noriko, because her poor health has kept her at home and unmarried for several years.  She wants her life to continue this way forever, living alone with her father. She wants nothing to change, and she definitely doesn't  wa...