Critics' Pics: Selections from AFI and Sight & Sound
A profoundly stirring evocation of elemental humanity and universal heartbreak. 70th anniversary screening.
Tokyo Story is the crowning achievement of the unparalleled Yasujirō Ozu. The film, which follows an aging couple’s journey to visit their grown children in bustling postwar Tokyo, surveys the rich and complex world of family life with the director’s customary delicacy and incisive perspective on social mores. Featuring lovely performances from Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, Tokyo Story plumbs and deepens the director’s recurring theme of generational conflict, creating what is without question one of cinema’s mightiest masterpieces. [136 min; drama; Japanese with English subtitles]
"This remains one of the most approachable and moving of all cinema's masterpieces." — Wally Hammond, Time Out
"Ozu's long shots, knee-high camera placement, and collapsed perspective—as gorgeous and unsettling as a Cézanne—gather power over the duration, but time itself is the master's most potent weapon." — Eric Hynes, Village Voice
"Ostensibly a snapshot of postwar Japan in the midst of profound cultural change, it is the movie's painful depiction of familial disintegration that remains universal today." — Kevin Maher, Times (UK)
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