The Only Son (1936) opens with a quote that casts maternal responsibility and filial duty in a shadow of hopelessness: "Life's tragedy begins with the bonding of child and parent." In this film, the parent is widowed mother Otsune (Cholo Iida), a poor textile worker in a rural town far from Tokyo, and the son a bright young schoolboy with an uncertain future: she can't afford to send him to high school but is encouraged to make the sacrifices necessary to make it happen. "Be a great man and don't worry about me," she tells him in their last time together for a decade. This sequence, set in 1923, is prologue to the story of their reunion in 1936. She leaves her small factory town to visit her "successful" son in Tokyo and finds that her grown son Ryosuke (Shinichi Himori) is married, has a young son and is scraping by teaching night school.
The Only Son was his first sound film (he resisted making the transition longer many fellow directors) yet he makes the transition seamlessly and uses sound-and silence-effectively. In one scene, he even pokes fun at sound cinema by taking his mother to a "soundie," a German musical that simply puts her to sleep. Like his best silent films, it has a quiet understatement and graceful formality, showing everyday life as a series of almost ritualistic greetings, conversations, and negotiations between peers, parents, and children. He shows collision of traditional culture and modern life as Ryosuke brings his mother into his cramped apartment and introduces her to the big city, he in his western-influenced suit, she in her traditional sari. And, of course, while the grown-ups suppress their personal desires under ceremony and social convention, Ryosuke's son is a typical Ozu child: obstinate, cranky, and selfish, utterly unselfconscious and the opposite of the cultural ideal.
There are no success fantasies in Ozu films but the level of disappointment and despair in this film is unusual. Ozu shows us a country in economic straits and characters deflated by their failure to live up to expectations. Otsune's visit only crystallizes his disappointment to be the success she envisioned, especially when she reveals the extent of her sacrifice. But it also inspires him to strive once more for the professional success that has eluded him, while she has the opportunity to see beyond his economic failure and see the generosity of her son. Ozu's portrait is not exactly hopeless but it is somber. There is no triumph without sacrifice and the films ends with a reminder of that sacrifice, not with a speech but a slump that communicates a disappointment straight from the soul.
By the time Ozu made There Was a Father (1942), a film he originally wrote (in collaboration with Tadao Ikeda and Takao Yanai) soon after the release of The Only Son in 1937, Japan in the middle of World War II, fighting the United States and occupying much of China. The idea of sacrifice for the national good was beyond question and Ozu delivered the necessary social message and still managed to create a film true to his sensibility and filled with tragedy, merely shifted into a new key. Again, we have the story of a widowed parent, Shuhei (Chishu Ryu, Ozu's longtime leading man and cinematic alter-ego), a devoted son, Ryohei (Haruhiko Tsuda), and a duty (to family, to Japan, to self) that will keep them apart for most of their lives. In this case, teaching is seen as one of the highest callings and Ryohei follows in his father's footsteps, which for him lead far away from home. In contrast to The Only Son, the reunions of father and son are joyous occasions, which Ozu communicates with sublime, serene restraint: the two fishing in a stream, their poles arcing upriver in unison and slowly drifting down, or simply sitting quietly in one another's company, enjoying the moment in silence.
There Was a Father is Ozu's fourth sound feature and his first to do away with Hollywood conventions completely, made entirely in the unique approach we associate with Ozu. He shoots almost exclusively from stationary set-ups in the "tatami mat position" (about 36 inches from the floor, as if viewed from the position of a person seated cross-legged on a floor mat), slows the pace of his editing and pulls his camera back to watch scenes play out in full shots and directs his performers to mask their emotions behind a polite smile and a calm resignation, using gesture and body language to communicate what they are unable to say or show. The "pillow shots" (still life scenes of the world around his characters which "cushion" the space between scenes) become the perfect complement to the serenity of the moments between of father and son.
There is no reference to the war (historian Tony Rayns suggests they may have been edited out by post-war censors) but the importance of duty is brought up over and over with the idea that one's job is also one's mission and duty. Yet while Ozu respects Shuhei's integrity and sense of accomplishment, and Ryohei's commitment to teaching the next generation, he implicitly questions the high cost of duty, the lonely years separation from his son. Ozu's art is in mixing the sadness with respect, love and memories of their time together, while reminding us of the unacknowledged regret of a lifetime apart with a simple, heartbreaking look.
Classic film preservation is a generally recent movement in Japan and the print quality of the two films is disappointing compared to most American studio classics of the same vintage. Original 35mm materials no longer exist and the DVDs of both films are mastered from fine-grain 16mm prints, which the notes explain show "every imaginable kind of wear and tear." Despite extensive digital repair, the films exhibit extensive chemical deterioration, surface scratches and print tears, as well as missing frames and footage, and the soundtracks are scratchy hissy. Given that, they are quite watchable and (barring any significant archival discoveries) as good as these films will likely ever look.
Criterion presents each film in a separate case and collected in a paperboard slipsleeve, both adorned with austere illustrations by artist Adrian Tomine that beautifully and simply communicate the look, tone and feel of the films. Film scholars and Ozu experts David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson are featured in superb video interviews featured on both discs, both running over 20 minutes. "I think that Ozu is the greatest director ever to work in the history of cinema," begins Bordwell in the featurette on The Only Son. "To me he was working at a level of brilliance that no other director was.... He is, for me, the fulfillment of the potential of cinema." Where this interview serves as an introduction to Ozu and the transition of his style and his subjects from the silent comedies to the sound era, the featurette on There Was a Father is more firmly focused in the film and its place in its culture and its era, as well as Ozu's personal concerns independent of the cultural demands of wartime filmmaking. Also features a 19-minute interview with Japanese film historian Tadao Sato and booklets with each film featuring new essays by film scholar Tony Rayns and archival articles by actor Chishu Ryu and scholar Donald Richie.
For more information about The Only Son/There Was a Father, visit The Criterion Collection. To order The Only Son/There Was a Father, go to TCM Shopping.
by Sean Axmaker
