(35mm, Film Forum, for "Ozu 120")
".... do you yearn? Oh, I yearn." - Kramer (but also the son in this film)This is one of those times, as a cinephile, I'd encourage you to perhaps wait to see this Yasujiro Ozu film if you are new to his oeuvre - this isn't to say it is a "minor" work or whatever that entails in what a director puts out. And I doubt Ozu would ever have thought in those terms (according to some insightful reviews on here this was more personal than even Tokyo Story as Ozu had a father who worked away from home in Tokyo for many years). But there are times in this where you are simply watching, say, a father and son fishing and it is a serene thing to experience. I can also see a newcomer not finding the conflict in this story right off the bat.
In There Was a Father, the story is split between a son, Ryohei (Tsuda as a child, Sano as an adult) and his father (the masterfully sublime and nearly always seemingly serene Chishu Ryu, star of dozens of Ozu's films) over ten years, firstly when the boy has to contend with being sent away to school while the dad Shuhei looks for work following his resignation after a few kids die in a boating accident. He puts the entire responsibility of this tragedy on himself - Ozu never shows us this, only Ryu's steadfast and firm reaction that he should retire and never teach again - and looks for work, but to give his son the education he thinks he deserves he sends him away.
Cut to ten years later when the child is now an adult, working maybe or no not really coincidentally as a teacher, and the father and son have a warm but somewhat distanced relationship. Now that he is grown, Ryuhei wants to live with his father in Tokyo but his father shoots down that idea with the whole "You have to fulfill your duty of work, no time for emotions" and so on. This is also coinciding with the war effort of the time (it's mentioned that Ryuhei has been conscripted, but we don't see him go off to war, or if he does and it jumps in time again there isn't much of an impact we see made on him), and the theme of duty is baked deeply into the film.
The trick that Ozu does here is to make a film that while obviously appealing to what the Japanese Powers That Be would want as a kind of "pay attention to what dad (err, Patriarchal figures, err *us*) during this time of war following years of Depression," it's still a story of parents and children and how all of the drama is what isn't said. I joke with the "do you yearn" reference, but I mean it somewhat sincerely too: this is a story of a son, who by the way Ozu doesn't say outright but we know the Mom is long gone/dead, so his dad and his love is what he wants.
It's not that Shuhei is a jerk or at all a bad dad, far from it, but his traditional sense of how Men should be and work gets in the way (and marry, which he asks his son about and its almost going down that typical Ozu track until it doesn't for reasons I won't spoil herr). And the memorable thing about the film is these conflicts are pulled back in that so called Meditative style that Ozu has, and it's not that moments are so drawn out that it gets into boredom, rather that he is simply asking for the audience (some might argue demands it) to come meet his characters and the world they're seeing halfway or more. The wartime aspect may make this dated a little more than his total masterworks like Late Spring or Tokyo Story.
But he trusts his actors to convey a lot and they do, mostly down to their personalities being so compelling; Ryu is one of those people in film, regardless of gender, who's soul comes through as so gentle and inspiring. It's no wonder that Shuhei's students, the ones he sort of left behind when he resigned, come back in later years to throw a reunion party and to share their growth and news: when your teacher is Chishu Ryu, with that gloriously pleasant smile and kind eyes, you want to reconnect! Furthermore, Sano as Ryu's adult son is equally moving on film and you can see Ozu grappling through this character with the deep wells of struggle inherent in something as seemingly simple as "men don't cry." Well, maybe he should, damn tradition!
There Was a Father could become better in my estimation the more I sit on it
(EDIT hours later, yeah half a star bump). It is sometimes difficult to adjust back to the Ozu style if you haven't seen any of his works in a while, and that may have hurt me as well. But it is never less than impressive filmmaking, and it's remarkable precisely because Ozu and his performers know how to show and also *not* show, and in a family (especially throughout time between fathers and sons) isn't it always what is held back that makes one reel in therapy(?)
