Around The World in 24 Frames 11.06.09: Floating Weeds
Posted by Len Archibald on 11.06.2009
The Final part of our Ozu retrospective: Ozu in color!
Oh, Friday! Giver of fun times...You have graced us with your presence!
The Rant
No rant this week, as I have put myself in the middle of a gargantuan project. Hopefully the bossman at 411 will like it and, yeah That's all I have to say about that.
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I love movies. They represent escapism, art, intellect and spirituality. Some are nothing more than popcorn flicks, designed to ease the burden of "real-life" for a couple of hours. Some bring important issues to the forefront that challenges how we perceive our surroundings. The most important thing for me if one is a serious film-goer is to constantly expand and discover new movies. This includes experiencing stories told outside of North America.
Yes, I know: "I don't like to read while I watch movies". Well, neither do I, but I won't use that to prevent me from finding a great story within the screen. It is important, as human beings to discover other cultures and expand our perceptions of those different from us and how they see the world. There are reasons that Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini, Ozu and Truffaut are important in the movie world They are just great at what they do.
I intend to highlight a new film every week that is considered "foreign-language"; now that definition is simple, yet broad and complex. For example, if you need subtitles to understand the events of the plot, I will discuss it. If it is a film from a primarily English-speaking nation, but is *NOT* in English (i.e. Leolo or Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner from Canada), I will discuss. If it is a film from outside the U.S. and it *is* in English, I will not discuss (sorry, Brits & Aussies) for now. My goal is to shed light on some of these gems, and help quell the insatiable appetites for those who can't live without seeing a new movie. Enjoy!
浮草, Ukikusa: Floating Weeds (1959)
Japan
Dir: Yasujiro Ozu
Runtime: 119 min
As we dive right into the final film in my three-part Ozu retrospective, I must express my love for black and white photography. I think I've had this preference over color since I first picked up an old Nikon and started clicking away. I just think B&W photographs are cleaner, clearer, and can easily teach those interested the basics of composition just by showing the picture. There is no color to distract the eye from framing techniques, depth of field and contrasting images.
So imagine my feeling when I first took a peek at Yasujiro Ozu's remake of his own 1934 film Floating Weeds. I usually don't read the information on the back of a DVD that describes how long the film is, what aspect ratio it's in or whether or not it is in color I like to discover films and not be told what to expect. If you haven't realized by now, my retrospective is in fact a representation of how I discovered Ozu and the first three films of his I saw in order. I was so used to the composition, frames and most importantly, black and white images that my world was rocked to see those colorized opening credits. "Color!" I scoffed to myself. "What are you doing, Yasujiro? You were doing perfect in black and white!"
Then I saw the first shot: A clear blue sky. A stark-white lighthouse in the back. A black bottle propped up by caramel-colored sand. Still water. It was the only time I doubted the master and he made me feel foolish for doing so. He had not lost a step and in fact, displayed the true genius of his eye. Ozu's collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa creates feelings and moods out of colors and depth that is hard to describe into words. I liken Floating Weeds to a serene day at the beach: the sun taps quietly on my skin while the gentle waves of the ocean marks its appearance at random intervals. It is both wholly recognizable and mysterious in one setting.
Floating Weeds, like all Ozu films, begins simply enough: a troupe of traveling kabuki actors arrive at a seaside town in Japan to perform a play in hopes to make some money. Ozu has us follow them appearing at the docks, together in a cramped boat, establishing each character until he decides to focus his sights on the leader of the troupe, Komajuro (Ganjiro Nakamura), a headstrong yet sensitive man. He arrives to a nearby saki shop to visit an old mistress, Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura), who bore a son for him. Because of his less-than-respectable occupation, Komajuro and Oyoshi had tricked the young man to believe his father is dead and that Komajuro is his uncle. Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) has grown into a handsome young man with aspirations to become an engineer. There is obvious pride that Komajuro shows for Kiyoshi and they do share a bond that is more father/son than uncle/nephew. Ozu frames a great scene with a fishing trip between the two and Kiyoshi berates his uncle/father for over-acting in an inferior play.
"Floating weeds" is a Japanese term meaning traveling or inherent actors, and it is obvious that despite the troupe's loyalty to Komajuro, they are failing to pull in the crowds they should to survive. Of course, this may be of their own doing, as instead of focusing on their craft, the actors smoke, drink saki, and peek out from behind the curtain to find attractive women they can have an affair with. This leads to a few comical situations, such as two of the actors setting up the third on a blind date with an unattractive, yet overly flirtatious woman, and another trying to make an advance on a barber's daughter, which ends with a quiet, yet hilarious punchline. These are the little nuances Ozu adds to his characters that some audiences in the West don't seem to understand: every character, no matter if they have one line of dialogue or one thousand, is given weight, depth and respect. No one is a typical "throwaway" character in Ozu's universe. It adds a sense of realism and relevance to the story.
Of course, not all the actors are male. The great Machiko Kyo (famous for her role as the rape victim in Kurosawa's Rashomon) plays Sumiko, Komajuro's current mistress and main female lead in the troupe. Sumiko is the Japanese equivalent of the modern woman - independent, beautiful and not afraid to exploit one to accentuate the other. She smokes, drinks and is not afraid to use others to get her way nothing is beneath her, not even groveling. It is a phenomenal performance that shows the ladies on the East were growing just as fierce in their voices as the women in the West.
Sumiko eventually finds out about Komajuro's secret, and there are moments where it is implied that Komajuro and Oyoshi may end up back together. Out of pure jealousy and spite, Sumiko decides she will get even. She enlists the aid of a pretty young actress, Kayo (Ayako Wakao) to seduce Kiyoshi. The plan is that upon finding out that Kiyoshi is with a woman of "loose character", it will ruin him, and in essence, ruin Komajuro. It is a glorious trap, as Komajuro must try to balance his authority to his son without revealing the truth to him. Is it possible? Of course, the plot thickens as seduction turns into true love for the young couple who are caught in the middle.
While Tokyo Story and Late Spring create masterworks of craft and story, Floating Weeds, for me is Ozu's best ensemble piece. It may be because at this stage of his career, Ozu was more concerned with crafting a perfect all-around story so I think he didn't mind tossing in fragments of melodrama. Ozu's films are mostly known for their meek presentation to the audience it's quiet compositions and the contemplative "hmmm's" and grunts of Ozu mainstay Chishu Ryu (who plays the theater owner in this film.) In Floating Weeds, Ozu directs his actors to show strong feelings in ways that a Western audience could easily relate to: We see a passionate kiss shared, shouting, slapping and a heartbreaking moment as the troupe begins to break apart, a young child crying out of the blue, saddened for his grandfather.
Again, it is because Ozu gave so much depth to each character, that every raw emotion felt from whoever is on the screen hits the heart like a sharp dagger. He invested so much into this little village that by the end of Floating Weeds, it feels more like episodic television where we expect to follow the lives of these characters next week instead of a grand feature film.
The shots in Floating Weeds are direct, simple and to the point, and yet, there is an awe and beauty in them. My absolute favorite moment comes between Sumiko and Komajuro as they engage in a heated argument. Rain pours in between them as they stand on opposite ends of a desolate street, under awnings. They pace back and forth. Sumiko has a bright red umbrella opened and leaning on the corner post. Ozu is wise not to break this composition up with close-ups of the two in silence staring at each other. The space and the rain smattering down represent their internal feelings for one another. It is not easy to create perfect compositions with color, as something simple, yet loud can distract the eye and create an unbalanced image. Ozu understood how to frame scenes with light, shadow and color so that the natural impulse of how we look at things (from left to right) would not be hindered. Empty spaces lead our eyes to something provocative. A bright red light points directs our attention to a character, even when he is behind a checkered wall.
Ozu also evolved as a filmmaker in how he had his characters use space. Before, I had discussed how in Tokyo Story and Late Spring, how Ozu would have characters walk in and out of hallways and corridors in their houses so we better understood how they got around the spaces they did. He used this same technique and pushed it further in the beginning of Floating Weeds, as we follow the troupe putting up posters and flyers on poles and creating somewhat of a Fellini-like parade of children. The streets are narrow, and we follow these characters through every nook, as they peer their heads in the windows of various shots and step into doorways, creating frames and frames upon frames. Ozu was one of the most multi-layered of film-makers, capable of taking a scene and creating a border out of a window or hallway to create another perfectly composed framework within a shot.
Ozu was also aware of how to create an atmospheric mood within his universe: with most of his films, it is a hot day and he would have his characters constantly fanning themselves or discussing the temperature - much like how Spike Lee used heat to give a sense of drama and character to the streets of Bed-Stuy in Do the Right Thing. There was no Ernest Dickenson to saturate the hues with oranges and yellows to give off that feeling, but we notice that the skies are bluer, the colors on screen are brighter and emotions run deeper in the town of Floating Weeds.
Kojun Saitô provided the musical score, that for me, felt more Italian than Japanese. There is a nostalgia and rhythm that uplifts the film. It isn't used so much as a means to manipulate the audience (this is sad music, this is happy music), but acts as an accompaniment to transition from scene to scene. Ozu used the music for the majority of his films in this way and is a style that was used prolifically in most French films (most notably, Jacques Tati.)
Yasujiro Ozu completed 54 films beginning with silent films (in which one of those was the original Floating Weeds) up until 1962 when he made Autumn Afternoon. He died one year later to cancer. He never changed his style, always worked with the same actors and was persistent in examining the themes of family, tradition and change. I don't know if there was a demon he was trying to exorcise from within him (he never married, and lived with his mother until her death), but there was some moment in his life that steered him to make the films and tackle the themes he was known best for. He once had a young assistant who suggested that perhaps he should shoot conversations so that it seemed to the audience that the characters were looking at one another. Ozu agreed to a test. They shot a scene both ways, and compared them. ``You see?'' Ozu said. ``No difference!''
I never understood terms like "French film-maker" or "Japanese film-maker". I actually dismiss them as terms that limit what those behind the camera can do. Any great artist will be able to communicate universal themes to an audience. He or she may have their own point of view based on their upbringing, culture or religion, but at the end of the day, the stories will still be relevant to those who see it. The 400 Blows is no different than Tokyo Story in regards to what they are about underneath the surface: children and parents who are unable to connect. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial and Let the Right One In both deal with alienated children who befriend an outsider and through this discover more about themselves should we dismiss one because it is in Swedish subtitles? (Ironically enough, Steven Spielberg is slated as a producer for the English remake of the Swede take on vampirism.)
There are other Ozu films to check out: Early SummerAn Autumn Afternoon, Tokyo Twilight, The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice, Early Spring - I suggest to take in each film and consider it part of a whole. It is the best way to understand the man who defied and broke basically every "rule" that exists in regards to making movies. Floating Weeds is currently available as a 2-Disc Criterion DVD, with the original silent film, A Story of Floating Weeds. The silent film has a commentary track from Japanese film scholar Donald Richie. The 1959 remake is given commentary from Roger Ebert himself.
I have mentioned that I have made it my duty to go back to school so I can better learn the craft of film-making (and gain some hefty contacts along the way), and this retrospective on Ozu has been good for me for selfish reasons. Every once in a while, every independent-minded film-maker gets down on themselves, wondering if they have the know-how or the talent to make a great film. I have questioned my own love of movies, wondering if it is futile to step into an industry where it is next to impossible to break through. As of this writing, Paranormal Activity is on pace to become the most profitable film of all time making over 4000x it's budget; at the same time, here I am, checking out the photography and engaging storylines of one of my all-time favorite auteurs and it's like being hit with a stroke of divine intervention. Movies are capable of being more than "popcorn" flicks (nothing wrong with that), and they can teach more than just How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. A great film can inspire, change hearts and minds and speak to us.
Trailer for Floating Weeds
{Film Passport Stamped]
Coming Attractions: Vittorio De Sica re-introduces and re-defines a little sub-genre called Neorealism with a simple story about poverty and a bike.
Questions or comments? Email me at aa24frames@aol.com!!!
