FREE ON YOUTUBE Ozu - Floating Weeds

My job as a video store is pretty simple. Anyone who's undecided, but looks like he really loves movies, gets Ozu. Ozu is the gentlest of all directors! He is the most humanistic and the most left! But nevertheless the emotions in his movies are deep! They reflect what is most important to us in life: parents and children, marriage or a life alone, illness and death. To take care of each other. For many years Ozu was hardly known outside Japan. In Germany, the nation of compulsively funny comedies, he is still a stranger today. He is considered "too Japanese". But Ozu is universal! It is of course impossible to filter out the greatest of all Ozu films. His work as a whole is of consistently high quality! As a rule, his stories span two generations (at least). All Ozu films are family dramas. The feelings of the protagonists are only lived out openly in very few scenes and the most important decisions are never made - only hinted at. Ozu knows how to reconcile our selfishness with the needs of others. I think that's what we learn in his films. I've certainly seen Floating Weeds ten times. For comfort or to relax. I mean really relaxing, not just snacking sweet stuff in front of the TV! The characters in it are old friends to me. It's not a sad story. The main character is an actor. One with a healthy ego. But then he realizes that others also have their will. He is stubborn, funny and finally touches us. His name is Komajuro (Ganjiro Nakamura) and he leads a travelling acting group. The group performs Kabuki theatre in the province. No ensemble for the biggest stages in the world. His lover is Sumiko (the pretty and equally wise Machiko Kyo). Like everyone in the group, Sumiko is loyal to him and yet we know that the troupe has failed. In the place where we meet them there is a Saki-Bar, run by Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura). Years before it had carried Komajuro's son. Now he returns. Whereby: His son believes that Komajuro is his uncle. Although he is proud of his child, he wants to keep the secret. But unfortunately he falls victim to a trick with the help of a young actress (Ayako Wakao)... You could make anything out of it now: A melodrama, a comedy... Ozu decides as usual for an everyday story. He loves his characters much too much to expose them to artificial highs and lows! Instead, he makes us feel almost physically with them. For example, when Komajuro lights a cigar in the Saki bar and finally finds a moment for himself alone. Ozu's scenes reflect the rhythm of everyday life. He uses his famous style (the camera barely moves and always remains at eye level with the characters), so that we can be as close as possible to the action. Between the scenes the camera captures details like the cherry blossoms or a banner in the wind. And even then the camera does not move. No resolutions, only cuts between one composition and the next. We MUST look, cannot simply react. Whoever reads something about Ozu will soon learn that he is violating the conventional rules of directing. His protagonists, for example, don't look at each other when speaking. But because of this, we never take the position of one or the other person. We stay outside the conversation. Observe. The music sounds nostalgic. This is an important moment in the Japanese composer's oeuvre, who repeatedly and gently worked on and differentiated similar material. Neurungen he never appreciated. Ozu's films resemble variations on one and the same theme. The strangest thing is that although his characters live so far away, we always recognize people who also exist in our circle of friends or family.