Yasujiro Ozu: debug the form, capture life
Complete retrospective
08.10.2024 – 08.02.2025
From early autumn until well into winter, The Filmoteca offers a complete retrospective of the preserved work of Yasujiro Ozu, one of the essential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Few have managed to capture human nature, the emotions that move people, in such a constant way, so subtle and delicate. maybe, in the United States, his admired Ford. Among his countrymen, Hiroshi Shimizu i Mikio Naruse van estar a prop. Hui dia, although there are many more, and Kore-eda seems the most obvious for the topics covered, the main avowed heir of their formalist humanism – to give a name to the style they share – is undoubtedly Aki Kaurismäki. With Ozu, whom he deeply admires, in each film he refines a staging that is increasingly minimalist and hieratic - distanced, we would dare to say – with which he achieves the miraculous paradox of getting closer and closer to pure emotion, to the secrets of the human soul. This was the only program of Ozu's cinema: "What I want to embody is humanity, that human warmth that moves me". Wow did he make it. I, if we look at the part of his best-known filmography, that of the fifties and sixties, he did this by filming variations on the same themes: relationships between parents and children, the clash between tradition and modernity, melancholy for the passage of time, the poetics of the everyday... Added to this thematic constancy is an absolutely recognizable style and the recurring presence of some performers (Chishu Ryu, Setsuko Hara, Kinuyo Tanaka, Haruko Sugimura, Kuniko Miyake…). It is not surprising, so, that the inattentive viewer can have the feeling that it was always "the same movie". With total humility, Ozu explained that these were the films he knew how to make and the ones that brought him closer to his goal: "I am nothing more than a small tofu producer. If a small tofu farmer is asked to prepare a curry dish, or breaded pork chops, he'll never get it right".
However, this comprehensive cycle allows us to get to know Ozu's work in more depth and to disprove the filmmaker himself. The retrospective is scheduled, as far as possible, in chronological order. Like this, during the month of October you will be able to see his first steps in silent cinema (which in Japan lasted well into the thirties). Although in many of these films his talent is already appreciated, Ozu did not develop the style we know until Una mujer de Tokio, with their fixed plans, their pillow shots, the camera at the height of the tatami, the transgression of the gaze connection, etc. Before becoming a “tofu farmer”, he made another kind of movies. It's interesting, for example, to appreciate his more comic side in Días de juventud or He suspendedido pero, as well as the influences of American genre cinema in Caminad con optimismo or La mujer de esa noche. To the cinephile joy of discovering the lesser-known films of master Ozu - even though many of these have not been restored and will be shown with some obvious traces of their almost hundred years of existence -, you can also enjoy one of his screenings with live piano accompaniment.
11.10.24 FRIDAY / 18.00 h Sound version
12.10.24 SATURDAY / 18.00 h Live music by pianist Arcadi Valiente
Walk with optimism
Hogaraka ni ayume
YASUJIRO OZU. The Japan. 1930. Change cast labels. B/N. 90′. Digital.
Int. Minoru Takada, Hiroko Kawasaki, Satoko Date, Takeshi Sakamoto.
Kenji, a little delinquent who likes to drink and steal, he falls in love with a simple girl who, when he finds out about his activities, he leaves him assuring him that he will not return to him until he gives up that kind of life. But it is not easy to get rid of the past…
