Stories Of Floating Weeds

Stories Of Floating Weeds is a two DVD set of two films directed by Yasujiro Ozu. It is a story he filmed twice, the first version A Story Of Floating Weeds (1934) is a silent feature written by Ozu and put out by Criterion with an updated silent-film score by composer Donald Sosin. This version is surprisingly not melodramatic, which is my overall impression of silent era films. There is an audio commentary from noted Japanese film historian Donald Richie as well. Ozu decided to remake the film, Floating Weeds in 1959, as one of his four color films. Noted film critic Roger Ebert has named it as one of his Top Ten films of all time. ebert basically says that all the work of Ozu is essentially one body and this film is representative of the typical Ozu film highlighting his virtues. Ebert also provides a film commentary for this version of the film as well. The film are quite similar. It is a story of a group of traveling actors, of which the lead actor returns to a small town where he has a lover and illegitimate son whom he wants to see. This upsets his current mistress in the troupe who hires another actress in the group to seduce him to get back at the leader. Family, once again is the theme, but this is not the official version of Japanese society. Every now and then Ozu peels back the official version and pokes at the underbelly of Japanese society. However, the fact that most of the characters subvert their own wills for the better of others seems highly suspect to me, the aging actor feels it is better for him to leave than make his son feel awkward. Perhaps, he does it , because it is what he has done all his life.The film is representative of Ozu's meticulous attention to composition with his expert framing and deep focus background and sparing use of camera movement. He is the opposite of film makers like Kurosawa and Mizoguchi in that his shots are static and the camera very rarely moves-there are no wipes, dissolves, fades, or tracking shots. Everything is shot at low angles and is instantly recognizable as an Ozu film. His stories are always about everyday people and their problems-there is no other genre for Ozu. So I agree with Ebert that this film is highly representative of Ozu's art and craft, but it is also a bit subversive compared to films like Late Spring and Early Summer with this story of an illegitimate offspring and nontraditional family.