Tokyo Story (1953)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

A Brilliant Conflict

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Extremely poignant, honest and humbling drama about parenthood. It's lost none of its power. Ozu doesn't sentimentalize or condemn; he merely observes human nature with calm and clarity. The director paints in delicate watercolour emotions, in which the viewer glimpses pain and joy, tenderness and mystery from simplicity and reticence. The central question, universal: How do we look after our elderly parents as they confront all manner of emotions about their own deaths?

First InThis Film Camera Working Very Good, In Start You Can See Three People Sitting In The Room In Different Situation In One Shut, The Old Woman Is Talking His Husband Is Listening & Thinking And The Young Girl Is Packing Own Food For Her Work, I Can See A Lot Good Depth Of Field In Tokyo Story, And I like Another Scenes When Three Old Friend Sit In Bar And Talking About Own Children's And They Just Complained About It ,One Of Them Lost Two Boys In War Another One Not Happy With His Son But The Oldest Lost His Boy In War Too & Not Happy Too And They Talk And Drink To Forget They Miserable Life , This Film Is About Real Respect To What We Have And We Don,t Even See, Parents , Family . In One View Father And Mother Sit Next The Big Door House And Talking About Come Back To Own City Or Village With Train, And I Think Ozu This View Meaning The Reall Place For Them Is Something Big Like This Door That They Can Live There And They Need Company For Rest Of Life, Just Respect Them , Our Parents.

My title may sound like an oxymoron, yet I can think of no more fitting way to describe Tokyo Story. The weighted themes on death and the separation of children from parents, and the clearly fractured relationships between characters, are ripe for the screens of your next soap opera; yet it is handled so delicately, so subtly, that for a large portion many may complain there isn't drama enough.Parents take a long train journey to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their children are for the most part polite and accommodating, yet so busy with employment they are unable to spend any quality time together, and privately view their parents presence as a burden. The pace is unhurried, and to the detriment of entertainment, conversations are carried out with a realistic mundane-ness. As the selfishness behind the facade of mannered conversation is slowly revealed, this approach becomes a powerful tool to reflect on the sadder aspects of family relations. And where typical melodramas may rush to have characters verbalise their upset, and make a mockery of it in the process, Tokyo Story manages to reveal that upset in a manner largely unspoken, and far more evocative because of it. With the films title, and many location cutaways, the younger generations busyness and neglect of their elders in a large city may also be seen as a metaphor for modern life's alienation and neglect of values. They do not mean harm, but Tokyo Story shows its heart by being a melancholy display on what is lost.All things considered, Tokyo Story is an ode to cherish human relationships, and a critique on human frailty and modern life. It is a sad and touching film, but meanders very slowly, particularly at the beginning.

When I was young, my reaction to film "classics" that I didn't like was that other people were simply wrong, but since that time I have come to understand that movies speak to people in very different ways. This movie is one I cannot connect with.In Tokyo Story, an elderly couple come to Tokyo to visit their children, who are too busy to spend much time with them. This dynamic plays out at a glacial pace. About a third of the way through the movie I came to believe it would be entirely plot less, and while it's not quite that, it is definitely got a lot more "Tokyo" in it than "Story."While the old people are very genial and pleasant, I didn't find their "story" that interesting. The movie did become more engrossing and affecting in its final third, but not enough to make up for the tedium of the first two thirds.The main reason I watched this movie was to see the brilliant Setsuko Hara, whose mesmerizing performance in Late Spring (also directed by Ozu) was most of the reason to watch it. She's very good here, but she's also got a pretty small part, which was very disappointing to me.Having seen two Ozu "classics" I'm thinking he's one of these highly admired film directors, like Godard or Jarmusch, whose appeal I find puzzling.Tokyo Story has been ranked by some as the greatest film ever made, but in a world of films like Rashomon, The Third Man, Citizen Kane, and Spirited Away, it's a label I cannot understand being placed on this particular movie.