Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tinear (A) on April 14, 2011 at 09:03:00

sacrifices all her meager salary to send her promising son to boarding school in the big city. Years later, she travels to his new home in the city, surprised to find out that his life had not taken the path both had envisioned.
Ozu had made many silent films before his first foray into talkies: this is a very polished, perfect gem of a story with none of the excesses or faults of other first-time directors. Though the actors are not of the same caliber as his later films would feature, their very commonness lends an authenticity.
It is a hallmark of great art that it speaks to the observer, irrespective of the cultural or time differences: Ozu has much to say to us, today. Though the people are simple rural peasants, they still believed in the absolute of higher education as the critical step to improving life. Today, the American middle-class echoes that belief; it is common for parents to plunge into debt to finance their children's higher educations, sacrificing much to ensure entrance and success at the better schools. But no American director, these days, would have the skill to make such poignant drama about such a quotidian topic. Ozu not only addresses it, he makes an eternal classic of it.