The Only Son movie review & film summary (1936)
If Ozu returns to characteristic visuals, he also returns to familiar actors. In "An Only Son," the small but important role of the hero's teacher is played by Chishu Ryu -- the teacher who, after moving to Tokyo, fails to realize his own dreams and, as the son bitterly tells his mother, is "reduced to frying pork cutlets." This was Ryu's seventh film for Ozu. In all he was to appear in 52 of Ozu's 54 films, between 1929 and 1962. He is the old father in "Tokyo Story" (1953).
Ryu is an actor who we recognize from body language. He exudes restraint, courtesy. He smokes meditatively. He said Ozu directed him as little as possible: "He had made up the complete picture in his head before he went on the set, so that all we actors had to do was to follow his directions, from the way we lifted and dropped our arms to the way we blinked our eyes."
Ryu is the ideal actor for Ozu, because he never seems to be trying. He is the canvas. By not "acting," he invites us to look inside him, and find a world there. I care deeply for his characters and remembering them, each looking similar, each distinctive. Acting like his doesn't win prizes like the Oscar; Brando drove that kind of acting out of Hollywood, rarely to return.
I really do feel as if Ozu is looking at his films along with me. He isn't throwing them up on the screen for me to see by myself. Together we look at people trying to please, and often failing, and sometimes redeeming. What finally gives the mother hope in this film would sound sentimental if I described it, but it's very serious.
A reminder that we're watching along with Ozu is his little tea pot. In every film of his I've seen, a small tea pot appears here or there in most of the interior scenes. It has a way of moving around, not that you'd notice that. A little unremarkable tea pot. In his first color film, we discovered it was red. Of course it was. On a Japanese scroll, red is the color of the artist's mark.
Ozu's "An Only Son" and "There Was a Father" (1942) will be released Tuesday, July 14, as a two-disc set in the Criterion Collection. Both include interviews with David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. Also reviewed in my Great Movies series: "Tokyo Story," "Floating Weeds" and "Late Spring."
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