Frequently appearing on both critics and directors' lists of Best Movies of All Time, Yasujir Ozu's deceptively low-key masterpiece Tokyo Story is perhaps the definitive film about the gap between the generations and the contrasting lifestyles and values of young and old. Shūkichi and Tomi Hirayama, a retired couple who live in the rural outskirts of Tokyo, travel to the big city to spend some time with their eldest son, Kichi and daughter Shige. It doesn't take long for them to realise that they have little time for their parents, who pay for them to stay at a hot springs to get them out of their way so they can go about their hectic lives. Only their widowed daughter-in-law Noriko has any time for them, showing a level of consideration and compassion their own children evidently lack. What makes Tokyo Story such a beautiful and moving experience is the understated way in which Ozu directs the drama: his unobtrusive style in which he avoids camera movements and positions the camera below the eye level of the actors lures the viewer into the scene; a privileged guest invited into the homes of the characters rather than a detached observer. Ozu was a master of understatement, with naturalistic scenes of dialogue often interspersed with cutaways to seemingly mundane events (a kettle boiling, a cat on a fence) which lend the film a feeling of authenticity which marks him as one of the greatest directors of all time.
