Tokyo Story---Train---One interpretation

 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 continuum of the blood relationship. The old couple attempts to reconnect their kids by tracing the path between them. In the movie, we know that the old couples have to sit on the train for one day and one night. Shūkichi and Tomi make effort for their affection to their kids. In order to see them, they have to suffer and sit on the train for more than a dozen hours. However, Tomi and Shukichi only have rejections, not acceptions. Their kids keep sending them to Atami. Even though the old couples say Atami looks like Onimichi because it is closed to the sea, it only has the appearance of Onimichi. Atami has nothing that resembles home. It is even insufferable to stay there. The old couple tries hard to trace their blood relation, to visit their children, but they redirect them to a place that is completely strange to Tomi and Shukichi.

The frequent travel on the train causes the death of Shukichi. Shukichi no longer can suffer the transportation. Or to say, the children they are looking for are no longer theirs. Their children’s homes are not part of their homes. Kōichi and Shige are first someone’s husband, wife, parent then their duties as children come second. Sanpei first considers himself then his parents. Therefore, as a mother, Shukichi’s job is done. Physical transportation consumes a mother’s duty and life force.

It seems the old couples are sent around. Their children only being sent once when Shukichi dies. Now it is children’s turn to trace back their blood relationship to their parents. Throughout the film, Shukichi and Tomi’s children always say it is too far to travel to Onomichi. But it only takes less than 24 hours to see their parents. The distance between children and parents is not that far, especially between Sanpei and his parents. He works on the Railroad and hasn’t had any family or romantic partner. He is physically and relationally the closest son to his parents. He should have the deepest bonding. But he is the last to come back. He has no volition to go back to his family of origin. The railroad marks the physical distance but not the distance between the hearts. Sanpei does not need to host his mother’s funeral and does not need to perform a lot of filial duty, unlike Koichi and Shige. So he actually shows the real distance between a parted child and his parents.

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshDecember 30, 2021 at 10:18 AM

    (One correction: Shukichi is the father, Tomi the mother.) I think you're right about the train being an image of manageable distance, in contrast with the infinite distance between hearts -- which is expressed partly by the distance between us and a character's face as we try to cross the gap and understand them. In Early Summer, there's even a train inside the house!

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