TOKYO MONOGATARI

De gepensioneerde Shukishi en Tomi Hirayama wonen samen met hun jongste, ongehuwde dochter op het Japanse platteland. Als ze besluiten hun kinderen in Tokyo en Osaka op te zoeken, draait het bezoek uit op een teleurstelling. Koichi en Shige blijken zo druk met zichzelf en hun eigen gezin, dat ze geen tijd voor hun ouders hebben. Ontgoocheld reist het echtpaar terug naar huis. Als Tomi onderweg ziek wordt, is het de beurt aan de kinderen om de lange reis af te leggen.

"Beautifully directed by the prolific Japanese master, Ozu (1903-63), who worked entirely through fastidiously composed, deep-focus shots and never moved his camera up, down, forwards or sideways, this 1953 classic is one of the cinema's most profound and moving studies of married love, ageing and the relations between parents and children." - Philip French, The Guardian

"Ozu’s long shots, knee-high camera placement, and collapsed perspective—as gorgeous and unsettling as a Cézanne—gather power over the duration, but time itself is the master’s most potent weapon." - Eric Hynes, The Village Voice

"The unshowy tenderness of this is like no other film-maker's: his actors don't seem to be acting at all, they're just living." - Anthony Quinn, Independent

“Yasujiro Ozu made one of the greatest films of all time. TOKYO STORY (1953) lacks sentimental triggers and contrived emotion; it looks away from moments a lesser movie would have exploited. It doesn't want to force our emotions, but to share its understanding. It does this so well that I am near tears in the last 30 minutes. It ennobles the cinema. It says, yes, a movie can help us make small steps against our imperfections.” – Roger Ebert

"What a stunning work of art this is" - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Lees meer:

Tokyo Story: anatomy of a classic - Jasper Sharp, BFI

Tokyo Story - Wally Hammond, Time Out