"Tokyo Story" is a story constructed under the Japanese cultural system. The film explicitly or implicitly reflects Japanese cultural elements such as cumbersome etiquette, hierarchy, and shame culture. In addition, the film is old, and it is easy for the public to miss it. A classic, and in fact, the film's enormous charm is enough to cross these cultural barriers.
The film adopts a common linear narrative, the overall plot is also bland, the shooting background is mostly in a small room, and there are almost no fast-moving shots, but this seemingly dull and dull film gives people an excellent view. The movie experience is largely thanks to Yasujiro Ozu's "magic". In order to avoid the picture being too monotonous and lacking vitality, Yasujiro Ozu used artificial light to create shadows to increase the movement of the characters, or to classify the colors of the characters' clothing to increase the visual effect, and also made full use of mosquito coils and other props to hint With the passage of time, the seemingly ordinary shots are actually inseparable from the director's meditative arrangement, and the dullness is the use of skilled film techniques. It is worth mentioning that the personalities of the two important characters of parents are also in line with the style of the film. Parents who seem to be slow are actually well aware of their children's words and deeds. These also need to be experienced through details.
The reason why the charm of this film can transcend cultural barriers is because the most essential things in a good culture are always the same. As an outstanding realism movie, "Tokyo Story" can always resonate with the broad audience. The plot in the movie is real and believable, and it seems to be happening around us, giving people a strong sense of substitution. When I saw my mother taking her grandson to play on the small slope, the ignorant child was playing on his own, while the elderly mother was alone and sad, I shed tears. They each represent the beginning and the end of life. The emotion that can be seen everywhere in life is very simple and plain through the hands of Yasujiro Ozu, which is a pure and real charm.
From a deep level, blandness can also be used to describe the theme of the movie, but in fact the theme is far more than that. Through the light and shadow, we can see the criticism of irresponsible children and the admonition to people about how to cherish , but the film seems to have a deeper understanding. The distance between expectation and reality runs through the whole film. Parents have a lot of distance between the expectations and reality of the trip to Tokyo and their children. From the children's point of view, reality There is a huge distance between them and the expected self. The eldest daughter thinks she has enough filial piety, but her actual behavior is incompetent. The third son finds that he can't accept his mother's death. The daughter also gradually deviates from the expected self. Such deviations seem to be inevitable. "Life is very disappointing", "but children are like that, slowly", these lines contain the director's true creative intentions, he asks us questions - facing daily life With the gradual erosion, can we still become the desired self? At the beginning and end of the film, there is a train that keeps moving forward. The train symbolizes life. The journey of mother's life has come to an end, but for the rest of the people, life continues, and the train continues to move forward, but The complex and fast life has made us too late to think about whether there is a deviation between reality and expectations.
View more about Tokyo Story reviews
