A Whole World Apart
Beyond the commercial successes of Spirited Away, the City Screen’s Japan Season has revealed an array of Japanese films that are equally significant. Floating Weeds, Yashujiro Ozu’s 1959 colour reworking of his own black and white A Story of Floating Weeds, has crowned this series of works.
The film, with its slow, measured pace, meticulously angled, beautifully arranged shots and engaging story, is an outstandingly well-crafted piece. Great attention is paid to the shapes and colours, shades and movement of the scenery, and it is used to mesmeric effect. Figures are framed by pillars and bottles of sake; reflected by wilting flowers, or divided by sheets of virtually solid rain. The characters themselves, in the saturating heat of the seaside town in which they are set, are sometimes positioned with so little action and such astute observation of expression that they appear to be talking portraits.
In short, this film is gorgeous.
It has however, more than just superficial cinematographic beauty. Unlike American efforts such as Snow Falling on Cedars, (which is fantastic to look at but dull on a biblical scale), the scenery was not the star. Its plot, based on a travelling performer’s return to his illegitimate son (who thinks his father is dead), is excellent. The machinations of the different characters, and their tragic consequences are truly engrossing. Love, honour, deception and parenthood are themes that are explored without the slightest trace of sentimentality: the tragicomic conclusion is not softened by any attempts to round off the work in a comforting tableau. Instead, we see two red lights of a train wagon disappearing into the distance.
Floating Weeds is probably more worthy of the title of masterpiece than the recent Spirited Away. Ozu appears to have reached for perfection in this film- each shot so well placed and considered, it made me wonder what he actually left on the cutting room floor. However, masterpiece or no masterpiece, this film is definitely of its time. The Japan of Floating Weeds is gone, and the status of the film is now a classic- more renowned than watched. This should not be so- and the City Screen has done an excellent job to show that so called classics are still relevant, by paralleling Miyazaki’s blockbusting animation with the films that effectively are its ancestors.
With such attention to how today’s films are indebted to their predecessors, it made me wonder how Floating Weeds has influenced the cinema of the western world. Kill Bill, as well as being woven from a myriad of different kung fu flicks, still I think, has links to Ozu’s works. The Bride’s final fight against O-Ren Ishii echoes Ozu’s eye for composition: taking place in a snow covered garden, blood streaks are highlighted by the surrounding whiteness, with the pair framed by a constantly tipping water sculpture.
The Japan season is now over, but it has inspired interest in how different cultures approach cinema. So, I would still recommend trawling for Floating Weeds ,and watching it just to see something different, but nonetheless influential.
Leave a Reply
Related Posts
Popular This Week
- Elections Night – Tim Ngwena re-elected president
- University criticised for allowing student to incur a personal debt of over £2,000 for campus event
- Exit polls reveal Hutchings to win Presidency
- It all ends tonight
- Success on two fronts for the University Boat Club
- Ngwena takes Presidency for second year running
Polls
Loading ...