Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family

Yasujiro Ozu's 1941 film is about a family that scatters after the father's death. The house is sold to cover his debts, and the widowed mother and her unmarried youngest daughter begin staying with the other children in turn. None of them really wants them, and none of them says so. The subject Ozu would return to again and again is set out here with this clarity for the first time: an elderly parent becoming a burden to her children, and the coldness beneath politeness. Twelve years before Tokyo Story, the same moral question is asked. The film was made during the war years and became one of Ozu's most commercially successful works in Japan. The style is not yet as fixed as in his mature period; the camera moves from time to time. Even so the low camera position and the empty-space shots between scenes are already in place. Who it's for: those who want to follow Ozu's development and are interested in family drama. Who it's not for: viewers expecting fast narrative; the film stays in silent scenes for long stretches.