Woman of Tokyo
Director: Yasujiro
Ozu
Year: 1933
Rating: 5.0
Silent Film.
An Ozu quickie. It comes in at 47 minutes and it is hard to know where it
fits in and what the point was. Other than his film studio Shochiku having
an open slot and telling Ozu to make a film in ten days. He, Koga Noda and
Tadao Ikeda wrote up the script and delivered the film in nine. Both Noda
and Ikeda would help Ozu script many films in the future. It is a very
moralistic tale told straight up with no real opportunity for complexity
of plot or character. It is pure soap opera suds.
Chikako (Yoshiko Okada) is the older sister to Ryo (Ureo Egawa) and is financing
his way through university. Ryo is involved with Harue (Kinuyo Tanaka who
is in Ozu's next film Dragnet Girl), who also lives with her older brother.
The two of them go see a Lubitsch film on a date. Ozu loved many American
films. It was a film from Thomas Ince back in 1915 titled Civilization that
Ozu says made him decide to become a director. Chikako works as an
office girl and after work does translation work for a professor. Supposedly.
But Harue hears from her policeman brother that Chikako is under investigation
for working in a night club and prostitution. Harue tells Ryo and tragedy
ensues. Much too quickly though for it to have any real impact to it. The
main problem is that in such a short period we feel nothing for the characters
- they feel like symbols with Ozu telling us either don't be a prostitute
or don't judge someone who is. I am not really sure.
