Art is the Temperance of Opposites (Franklin)

 

    Ozu is a master of human contradiction and how to represent it.  In I Was Born, But... Ozu has a film reel of the principals' father making ridiculous faces that would make anyone laugh.  This is potentially the funniest scene in the whole film, but it produces the darkest shot and most dismal scene for the boys the film focuses on.  The boys in seeing the least serious side of their father, subjected by his boss to make these faces, learn how little their father matters in the grand scheme of things.  The lightest, funniest scene is simultaneously the darkest and most depressing.  How can this man matter if he is so willing to play the fool? And the resolution of the film is not a correction of this view on the part of the kids, but an acceptance of this fact and acceptance that it will be very unlikely that either of the boys will ultimately be very important either.


    Alternatively, in Early Summer, Ozu includes a scene of Noriko's and Koichi's parents reminiscing on the memory of Koichi losing a balloon and crying over it.  This memory of Koichi's childhood sorrows brings a smile to his parents' faces and they think fondly of the early years of their family.  The sorrow captured by the memory, probably because it was the simple childlike suffering, is what induces such a warm feeling between the two.

These two instances are beautiful examples of Ozu's mastery in understanding and expression of human nature.  The farthest opposites are the most closely related concepts, and this is unavoidable in the emotional life of a person. The greatest joys are only such in light of the greatest sorrows and vice versa.  We can't help but laugh to see a child fall over when they first begin to walk, and we can't help but sigh in longing when we pass lovers in the street.  The child's suffering is funny in light of how much it hurts to fall as an adult (higher up, heavier, etc.).  The joking of the boys' dad in I Was Born, But... is depressing in the context of buffoons and fools, and the power dynamics that support the prescription of this behavior.  But Koichi was still crestfallen over his lost balloon, and the boys' father still had a hoot and a holler goofing off in front of the camera with his boss, not to mention the fun the actor must have had in filming.

Comments

  1. Danping LongDecember 6, 2021 at 9:18 AM

    Your post reminds me the Shakespearn fool. Perhaps one common ground for these characters is that if they are willing to play folly, they are annoucing themselves to be outside of the power structure, because a fool can do no one's harm. But is the father gaining any outsider perspective to make himself wiser than the boys who only want to be generals, like Falstaff in Henry IV?

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  2. Krishnan VenkateshDecember 22, 2021 at 9:44 AM

    Beautiful post. It's the essence of Ozu, what people refer to as "bitter-sweet" -- an adult emotion, a 3-D emotion, an emotion with dimensions. Most movie emotions are 2-D, and that ruins us for experiencing our lives most fully.

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