An Inn in Tokyo Film Review

This is still a silent film even though much of the Japanese industry had gone to sound by this time. There was another silent film that has been lost after this and then finally to the talkies with The Only Son in 1936. This is the final story in the four Kihachi films - Passing Fancy, A Story of Floating Weeds, Innocent Maid (lost) and An Inn in Tokyo. Kihachi played by Takeshi Sakamoto is a lovable figure with a ready smile and a taste for Saki and women, almost always down on his luck, out of a job and having to take care of his children. His heart is good but less than responsible and he always finds himself down and out.

No more so than here as the film opens with him and his two sons walking through the empty roads of the industrial section where he hopes to find a job but so far with no luck. The surroundings are desolate and hopeless as his two young boys catch stray dogs for a small fee. Enough to eat or sleep in an inn for those with only a few yen in their pockets - everyone in one room sleeping against the wall. Kihachi asks his boys - would you prefer eating or sleeping. Ozu is relentlessly downbeat and pessimistic here from beginning to end - no sprinkles of humor that he often has in his early films nor a spark of optimism. They aren't the only ones who are homeless and hopeless - they find similar company in the inns.

On the road they come across a mother and her little girl a few times and Kihachi helps them out with a meal or two. He is a good soul. Finally, he gets some luck when he runs into an old female friend from long ago - he explains to her that his wife is gone - dead or simply left is not clear - and she helps him find a job in a factory. Things look up but not for long as the little girl gets ill and is on the verge of death unless she can go to a hospital. Kihachi goes out to find some money. The ending is inevitable and sad - but Kihachi will likely bounce back as he always does. In the film that never came.

The older son is played by Tomio Aoki - who at 13 years old had already been in close to 60 films and quite a few of Ozu's. He has a face you can't forget - ugly, cheeky and charming. The mother of the girl is played by Yoshiko Okada, a popular actress who along with her boyfriend in 1938 defected to Russia to protest the totalitarian regime in Japan. Russia executed the boyfriend and jailed her for ten years. She later came back to Japan and appeared in a few films, one being a Tora-san movie, The female friend is played by Chôko Iida and was in a number of Ozu films. This film drips with melancholy to the point where it is oppressive - how do people like this face another day - they just do - you get up and you start walking. Many critics have called this neo-realism before neo-realism was a term - I suppose if that means bleak without any flourishes - it is natural in its acting and sparse in its dialogue (or Intertitles).