Many silent films have placed adult actors as children and the results have been occasionally juvenile yet here we have a film featuring children as children who teach the adults as much as they learn.
Tomio
Aoki and Hideo Sugawara are two fine actors and are clearly well-directed in
delivering relaxed and believable performances. Director Yasujirō Ozu was a
master of the family dynamic and here, as in his later works, you see a
fully-rounded unit built on love, disappointment and stretched by social obligations.
In some ways, it’s a slight story but told with almost novelistic attention to
detail – it feels so rich.
An
Adult's Picture Book View — I Was Born, But... to give its full title and then
in Japanese - 大人の見る絵本 生れてはみたけれど - was Ozu’s 25th film and he had 30 more years
of film-making to go.
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| Tomio Aoki |
Sugawara
and Aoki play Ryoichi (the eldest, 8 at the time and 93 now!) and Keiji (the
youngest although he was actually slightly older), the two sons of a business
man, Kennosuke Yoshi (Tatsuo Saitō) and his wife, Haha (Mitsuko Yoshikawa) who
have moved to the Tokyo suburbs – an area with improved education and where
they will be closer to his boss Iwasaki (Takeshi Sakamoto); such are the
obligations of working life.
Almost
immediately the boys encounter difficulties with the local children who take
against them in the way children do. The biggest boy pushes Keiji down and he
runs to get Ryoichi to stand up for him. Sheer weight of numbers plays against
them but, as the Yoshi’s escape, the boys promise to get their full revenge in
school.
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| Ozu manages to catch a poignancy even among the ealy morning washing... |
The
next day their courage fails them as they sight of the gang at school leads the
boys to play truant and forge their school work. The plan almost works until
their teacher tells their father who, on hearing their reasons for avoiding
school tells them to ignore the bullies. But, as every child knows, this tactic
rarely works and so it proves.
But
the boys are made of stern stuff and after fighting back and being helped by an
older delivery boy called Kozou (Shoichi Kofujita) the biggest boy is
despatched. Kozou won’t do anything about Taro (Seiichi Kato) the son of their
father’s boss and also a very good customer of Kozou’s company.
The
playground hierarchies are, as we grow to learn, not that dissimilar to adult
ones and the boys become alarmed to see their father – seemingly – playing the
fool to win favour with his manager, Iwasaki when they go along with Taro to
watch cine-film at his house.
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| Hideo Sugawara who is now 93 |
Disgusted
they both confront their father and ask why he must be subservient – he’s my
Director and he pays me… says the father and the boys say he should refuse to
accept the pay and pay his director… Not one I’ve tried I’ll admit but, as the
two come to terms with the sacrifices their dad must make they realise that
compromise and ambition aren’t necessarily incompatible. By the same token
Kennosuke accepts he must keep his eye on his own goals…
Not
a lot happens but a lot happens…
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| The Gang |
Today’s
screening was special for a variety of reasons and featured a precious 35mm
print flown in from the National Film Centre in Tokyo. But it wasn’t alone in
making the trip as Katsudo-Benshi Hideyuki Yamashiro and acclaimed silent film
pianist Mie Yanashita had also made the long haul. Yanashita I was fascinated
to hear as accompaniment styles vary by film culture whilst all the while
embracing the same humanity on show. She opened with some glorious themes and
then got stuck into the humour with practiced ease: this is what I love about
Ozu, his ability to cover emotional range with deceptive ease and Mie was more
than up to the task.
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| Family debate |
Of
course, she also had to accompany Yamashiro’s verbal accompaniment and that’s a
skill in its own right. I’d never seen Benshi before and for the uninitiated,
it’s more than just the reading out of inter-titles. Yamashiro acted out the
scenes in between the dialogue, adding words where he could lip read them and
tonally-appropriate narration. It was all in Japanese of course but between the
mime, the piano and the emotional accenting we got the joke even if the
Japanese speakers in the audience were there just that bit quicker!
It’s
a remarkable combination and all I can say is that life would be a lot more
interesting if we all had a personal Benshi with us on a daily basis.
The
screening was part of the Barbican’s series The Japanese House: Architecture
and Life After 1945, showing life before in this case and was sponsored by the
Japanese Film Foundation, NFC Tokyo and Shindofuji Ireland.
The
film is available on Blu-ray/DVD along with Good Morning, Ozu’s 1959 re-make.
You can buy it from the BFI shop here at a very reasonable price!
Personal
post-script: It was Yasujirō Ozu who got me interested in watching film again.
Many years after the joyful complications of fatherhood began, I was walking
along the Southbank enjoying some "us time" with Mrs IThankYou when, on impulse,
we watched Late Autumn at the BFI. I’d never seen or heard of Ozu before but
this was an energising enlightenment; a true holiday for the mind and a work so
powerful in its strange simplicity and familiarity.
And
one thing leads to another because, you just have to explore and find out more…
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