The Yasujirō Ozu movie Roger Ebert called “deceptively simple”
Throughout his career as one of the most notable film critics of all time, Roger Ebert threw himself into the cinematic works of his native United States as well as a wide range of movies from across the world. Ebert had a stunning and almost encyclopaedic-like knowledge of cinema, regardless of its origin and frequently delved into the best films of Japan.
Of course, when thinking of the great movie directors of Japan, we immediately think of Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki, but alongside these two Japanese film icons, there is certainly a place for the legendary Yasujirō Ozu, a filmmaker who Ebert had been regularly blown away by.
Many of Ozu’s films explore the nature of the Japanese nuclear family and its relative decline throughout the 20th century. Some of his most famous works were Late Spring, Tokyo Story, and An Autumn Afternoon, but it was another film that captured Ebert’s attention to the greatest extent.
Writing in 1991 about the greatest movies of all time, Ebert wondered whether many of his readers might have even heard of Ozu at all, the “Japanese master, who lived from 1903 to 1963 and whose prolific career bridged the silent and sound eras [and] saw things through his films in a way that no one else saw.”
According to Ebert, Ozu had an entire style of his own making, one that he never changed, and furthermore, one that was completely unique, a “completely alternative cinematic language.” Indeed, there was a special quality to Ozu’s work in how he often placed his camera in one position and then allowed his actors to detail some of the most beautifully touching and emotionally charged moments in the history of Japanese cinema.
From Ebert’s perspective, Ozu’s 1959 drama Floating Weeds is at the top of his filmography. The movie is a remake of Ozu’s black-and-white silent film A Story of Floating Weeds, released in 1934. It focuses on the head of a Japanese theatre troupe who returns to the town where he left behind a son who thinks he is his uncle and tries to repair their relationship despite the jealousy of his new mistress.
Ebert said that Floating Weeds, like many of Ozu’s movies, “is deceptively simple”. He wrote, “Ozu weaves an atmosphere of peaceful tranquillity, of music and processions and leisurely conversations, and then explodes his emotional secrets, which cause people to discover their true natures.”
The entire film is done with “hypnotic visual beauty”. According to Ebert, too, Floating Weeds had only been available for many years in a “shabby, beaten-up version” usually known as Drifting Weeds, but technology of the late 20th century allowed it to be restored on “superb” new formats, the likes of which have even been bettered in HD and 4K iterations.
Still, regardless of the version of Floating Weeds, Ebert thinks there is a simple beauty to it, which could be said of many of Ozu’s stunning dramas. When the Criterion Collection version of the film was released, Ebert had provided an alternate audio commentary track, proving his deep love for it.
While the likes of Tokyo Story and Late Spring often take the limelight when it comes to Yasujirō Ozu’s best movies, there is only one choice for Roger Ebert, and that’s the director’s 1959 effort, Floating Weeds.
