Thoughts: Tokyo Story

Ozu’s Tokyo Story is a transitional film. Situated in what is considered to be the Golden Age of Japanese Cinema in the 1950s, it lies at the juncture between traditionalism and modernism. Likewise it lies at a juncture somewhere between traditional Japanese aesthetics and Westernisation. What I want to explore are the ways in which Tokyo Story’s position in a unique period of historical and cultural transition is played out aesthetically and thematically in the film, by the use of transitional themes and techniques and the Japanese concept of mono no aware.

Cultural and historical space.

Tokyo Story was made in 1953, right in the middle of what is considered to be the Golden Age of Japanese cinema. More broadly, it was eight years after the allies had dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and it was one year after occupation forces had left Japan and a new, Americanised Japanese parliament had been created. Immediately after the war the Japanese film industry had become subject to tight restrictions, censorship and editing by the American occupation forces. Once the allies departed in 1952, the Golden Age of Japanese cinema is generally thought to have begun. But it frankly didn’t last very long. The 1950’s were a transitional period in Japan. Tradition and the immediate legacy of the war were transformed with the influence of America, increased Westernisation and economic prosperity as well as a generation of younger new-wave filmmakers who were beginning to emerge with vastly different concerns and interests. But Ozu and his contemporaries were making films whose thematic concerns derived from sets of cultural assumptions which were increasingly being challenged. The plot of Tokyo Story is one of disintegration, where a couple realise they have become a burden on their children. The disintegration of the family system can be seen as analogous to the disintegration of those traditional values happening in Japan during the 1950’s. Just like the characters in the film, people were abandoning the family structures which would traditionally focus around respect and care for the parents, and people were also abandoning the small villages which were so important traditionally, for the huge cosmopolitan cities of Tokyo and Osaka. And while Ozu’s films were by no means culturally irrelevant at the time, their concern with themes of nostalgia and the fading away of tradition reflects the transitional period the entire country was in.

Nostalgia and Loss.

The historical period of transition comes across in Tokyo Story through themes of nostalgia and loss, crystallised in the form of the dissolution of the traditional Japanese family. Japan was attempting to modernise, and had been for many decades, but in the 1950’s modernisation became the driving force of the government, and one of America’s biggest aims was to turn Japan into a thriving capitalist democracy with a pro-Western agenda. But Japan could only accomplish this by suffering a dislocation with its central traditions. One of the stylistic ways this comes across in Tokyo Story is the recurring image and sound of the train. One of the initial shots of the film is of a train rushing through a traditional Japanese fishing village. The whistles of the train echo throughout the film, and the image of the train bypassing the town is repeated at the close of the film once Tomi has died. It has the effect of emphasising that things are happening elsewhere, but not in the town. Everything is passing it by. However, the most obvious sense of loss is in the family’s relationships.

Transitional spaces.

In Tokyo Story the dislocation and dissolution of the family is not evident simply in the themes but also in the films spatial composition and the use of transitional spaces. The most obvious example of this occurs right at the beginning of the film. The first scene shows Tomi and Shukichi packing and preparing for their trip. The next scene is in Koichi’s house in Tokyo. Ozu moves between the scenes with shots of three transitional spaces: a shot of a smoke stack, one of power lines and then a shot of a sign outside an office. These shots do nothing to orient the viewer in space or time. The journey between cities is completely elided. The transitional shots do nothing to help us understand how much time has passed or where in space we are situated. The effect of having these shots has been called an ellipsis effect. They are beautiful but disorientating. The repetition of transitional spaces appears to be invested in mimicking the transitional space the family and the rest of Japan exist within.

Mono no aware.

The other crucial way transition is affected is through the concept of mono no aware, which is a Japanese aesthetic concept that emerged during the Heian period and was transmuted into a high literary technique. ‘Aware’ suggests an emotional duality that is present in all things, and so mono no aware, which literally translates as “the pathos of things” implies the duality between beauty and sadness. It means that by being sensitive to the pathos of life, a person can transcend confusion imposed by change. In Tokyo Story there is no attempt to reconcile things to create a happy ending, only an acceptance that life is disappointing. Life is ephemeral and because of that sadness exists. By structuring the film with this logic Tokyo Story sets itself up as a film which is nostalgic for tradition and the past, but accepts that change is what it is, neither good nor bad.