Tokyo Chorus

Yasujiro Ozu's 1931 silent film is set during the Depression and is regarded as a forerunner of his later family pictures. A young man at an insurance company loses his job for defending an older colleague who was unfairly dismissed, and while trying to support his wife and children he takes work at a restaurant opened by his old teacher. Paying the price for behaving honourably is the film's subject. Ozu was still under the influence of American comedy in this period, and the film places comic scenes beside painful ones without separating them; a child's demand for a bicycle and the father's unemployment sit in the same frame. Hideko Takamine appearing as a child actor is another of its assets. The static camera and low angle found in later Ozu are not fully settled here; the form is more mobile. Who it's for: viewers interested in early Ozu, Japanese silent cinema and stories of the Depression. Who it's not for: anyone who struggles with silent film and intertitles, or expecting the mature Ozu style.