If I try to briefly characterize this author, I have an analogy with the great Robert Bresson, for both of these authors strive to achieve ingenious simplicity and asceticism in their works, albeit very far in semantic content. Ozu’s films are devoid of pretentious poses and rapid events, he tries to slowly and consistently draw the viewer’s attention to simple, common to almost all people things – relationships with loved ones and with himself, which often turns out to be not so different things.
The plot of the film revolves around a middle-class leader who lives in an era of global changes in the socio-cultural space of Japanese society, young people are increasingly moving away from the traditional model of marriages by agreement of parents and prefer to choose a companion on their own, so to speak, at the call of the heart, rather than rational calculation. The hero recites progressive views - gives young girls advice not to pay attention to the old-fashioned views of parents and act as they believe themselves, even acts as an intermediary between his school friend and his daughter, who escaped to the chosen one from the parental home without the permission of her father. When it comes to her own daughter, who has chosen a colleague from work, rather than a party chosen by her father, stands in an unshakeable position, refusing to recognize her right to choose. Moreover, this situation does not cause in him a sense of contradiction, a kind of “ownership effect”, only aimed not at things, but at relations with loved ones.
As the plot progresses, we are shown that rigid adherence to tradition, to your principles, to what you clearly distinguish between right and wrong is not always a good thing. As time passes, people change and old beams become unfit for the new framework of life, and blind faith in your ideas can hide from you fundamental things that remain unchanged, as in this film, the desire of parents to their children to be happy.
The film uses an interesting technique - a low shooting point, thanks to which the viewer seems to sit down in the pose of a Zen Buddhist monk, slowly watching the course of life. The action unfolds leisurely, abounds in many household scenes with funny sketches from the life of Japanese society in the middle of the last century, for a modern and sophisticated viewer, such a pace may seem boring and immersive in sleep, but it may slow down a little and look at what is happening - this is just what we need now.
I liked the movie. I would very much like the sculptors of modern social dramas to learn from such masters.