Year: 1959
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Unlike Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai), Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu's film were rarely seen outside of Japan. Their minimal narratives and idiosyncratic style resembled few other films, and distributors feared they were “too Japanese” for international audiences. Much of his pictures were bleak, often centering round fractured family values. Good Morning is different, mainly because it is far more optimistic.
In this, two boys begin a silence strike to press their parents into buying them a television set.
Unusual for this Director, Ozu takes us out of an Japan of old values and brings us into the twentieth century. This Japan is peppy, a place where American cultural influences have seeped into everyday life. Good Morning has the feel of a typical 50's Leave it to Beaver sitcom. Certainly what we are seeing is the proto-typical "nuclear" family (stubborn old values dad included!)
Ozu's main critique here is of Japanese culture. The father worries that television will turn people into "100 million idiots" yet he does not question the mindless customs that have seemingly been in place for centuries. He criticizes adults’ propensity for meaningless, space-filling conversations, the small talk that “acts as a lubricant in this world.” Ozu wants to rid the world of meaningless chatter.
Good Morning, like many of Ozu's films, is a slow paced meditative picture that will certainly make enemies out of those with adhd. Elegant, yet minimal, camerawork combined with a brilliant script and well thought direction gives each character tremendous life and gives the audience a lot to think about long after the picture is over.
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