What is Tokyo in Tokyo story?

 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 its’ citizens. But how can the whole nation reunite and grow without the past, especially in a place that has a split history?

Then how can Tomi and Shukichi give significance to Tokyo? They ask Noriko to point out the directions of everyone’s home. Tokyo for the old couples is divided into discontinuous spaces, Koichi’s house, Shige’s house, and Noriko’s house. It seems that Shukichi and Tomi’s tour in Tokyo has only an abstract time and vague geographic meaning. Indeed, Tokyo for the old couples means three different houses, not one family. Tokyo is a space that includes all the separation.

Shukichi and Tomi do not know the whole picture of Tokyo, just as the audience does not know the inner feelings of this couple. They have contact with their kids sequentially. But not a single dinner can unit everyone. This separation of the whole family can from the boundary of one house. The old couple is grounded in different houses, so as their children. House can mean formality, orders, and rules. One can only care about one household. The trip for the old couples is a visiting of their children, but also a witness for boundaries. Tokyo for them is an abstract idea that shows the separation of the original family and the formalities that these kids have to perform.

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshDecember 30, 2021 at 10:28 AM

    Some deep insights here, nicely expressed. Tokyo is a place where you can get lost, where you can't see clearly the relations between things and people. It's the place where order gets destabilized; even the city itself is constantly growing, constantly moving, constantly reinventing itself, perhaps in the same way as Noriko is inventing a new way to be?

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