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 A Story of Floating Weeds More at IMDbPro »Ukikusa monogatari (original title)

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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Elegant Simplicity, 27 April 2005
9/10
Author: Galina from Virginia, USA

"A Story of Floating Weeds" (1934) was the second Yasujiro Ozu's film I've seen. Like with "Tokyo Story", I kept asking myself, why the film that was made so many years ago about the people who lived so far away in the world I don't know much about is so wonderfully engaging? Why was I so drawn to the characters of this human drama? The story is simple: an aging, traveling actor who is the manager of a kabuki troupe returns to a remote village where he secretly meets his former lover and her 19 year old illegitimate son, to whom he is known as "uncle." The older man finds happiness in communicating with his son who turned to be a fine young man. His current mistress, filled with jealousy because of his attachment to his secret family, hires a young beautiful girl, the member of a troupe to seduce a boy.

Directed by the great director and humanist with elegant simplicity, genuine interest to his characters and restraint, this moving film is never melodramatic or manipulative.

I liked the music score written specially for the film in 2004. I tried to watch it silent but it would take me more than one viewing to get used to no music score at all.

Seems that Ozu valued the film and thought about it a lot - he himself made a remake in color and sound 25 years later.

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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
as interesting as the remake, and almost as good, 13 December 2003
Author: alsolikelife from United States

Remakably similar in structure yet different in tonal effect to Ozu's more famous 1959 remake, this story of a travelling troupe's last days in a seaside village was one of Ozu's first forays into a quiet, rural background, though it still feels brisk compared to the more staid and sumptuous remake. The depictions of stage life are more slapstick-oriented than in the remake (most notably in Tokkan Kozo's hilarious turn in a full-sized dog costume), but are counterbalanced by sensitive portrayals of all the characters, especially the great, dignified lead performance by Takeshi Sakamoto. The romantic interludes are as powerful as in the remake, though without employing the overt sensuality of on-screen kissing; instead there appears to be the use of a filter or gauze to give the scenes between the young couple an otherworldly effect, which gives more emphasis of the idea of the actress employed to seduce the troupe leader's son enacting a "performance", an idea that I would have like to have seen developed even further. Even so, this is a marvellous work with a set of wonders distinguishable from that of the remake.

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9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
an early masterpiece from Ozu, 25 July 2004
10/10
Author: paybaragon from Cheshire, CT

This film is full of the sensitive observation, the slow-building tragic emotion and the moral ambiguity of Ozu's later works. While eschewing the cheap tragedy that was already so fashionable in Japanese melodrama (you can imagine the story going in that direction for any other director), the ending leaves the viewer uncertain and unsettled, with only the vaguest hopes for all concerned.

Apart from the depiction of a rundown and pathetic acting troupe (it reminds me of Alan Mowbray's drunken Shakespearian actor in 'My Darling Clementine'), and the rural small-town atmosphere, what lingers on in the mind is the portrait of an extremely flawed man. Like the great male characters of American cinema, Ichikawa is decent but ruled by anger, regret, and a certain way of life. will Ichikawa ever really be able to change, or do justice to those he feels responsible for? But after all, actors will be actors...

In fact, if this film is to be criticized for anything, it should be done so for its lack of a really detailed look into the lives and profession of the actors. After all, Ichikawa's profession turns out to play such an important part, in the end, in the fate of his 'family'.

Ozu's direction of women (particularly Ichikawa's wronged, but vengeful, lover) is sensitive and truthful, while his his direction of children is, as always, well-observed and hilarious.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Perfect, 15 June 2009
10/10
Author: ky_chong

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

There are allegedly two cuts to this film, the 86-minute cut available on the Criterion Collection, and the 118-minute cut available elsewhere. I've watched only the Criterion cut so I can only comment on that version. (I've no idea if it was simply a matter of a longer running time based on a shorter fps; the 86-minute version is run at 24 fps, but if run at 18 fps, the same film will last 115 minutes.)

It's pretty hard to underline what exactly makes "A Story of Floating Weeds" so perfect as a film. Made in the late silent film era, the technology has already reached a very high level in 1934, when the movie was released. The film was shot at the running rate of 24 fps, which made everything seemed so much more modern and fresh than most silent films, and the film is acted perfectly. There is none of the melodrama which mars some of the older silent releases. Here, the tone is pitched perfectly, and interest in the movie is very well sustained throughout. The cinematography is also flawless, and the condition of the film pristine for so old a film.

Kihachi, a traveling kabuki troupe owner, goes to meet his former mistress at a seaside town where he is now performing. He had fathered a son previously and the son, now a student, does not know he is his father. However, when his current mistress and fellow actress by the name of Otaka discovers that he has a mistress, she is enraged enough to request another, younger actress to seduce the son.

"A Story of Floating Weeds" is based on a treatment by Ozu himself (alias James Maki); Ozu liked it enough to have a Technicolor remake of it done years later in the late 1950s. But this 1934 film holds its own against the remake. It may not have the languid tone of the later film, but its rich, nuanced acting, masterly cutting and framing goes to show that by the time Ozu shot this movie, he is already a master. Another huge plus is that Donald Sosin's Schumann-like piano score complements the film excellently. Definitely recommended and well worth watching.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Ozu's early stab at greatness, 7 September 2008
9/10
Author: Cosmoeticadotcom (cosmoetica@gmail.com) from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Yasujiro Ozu was perhaps the greatest obsessional filmmaker in history. Thus, it's no surprise that not only did he rework the same themes over and again in his films, but that he also redid earlier films of his own years later, such as 1932's I Was Born But... as 1959's Good Morning. The most famed examples of this trait are 1934's silent black and white A Story Of Floating Weeds (Ukikusa Monogatari), written by Ozu and Tadao Ikeda, and 1959's sound color film, Floating Weeds (Ukigusa), written by Ozu and Kôgo Noda. Both films, whose titular metaphor revolves around the lives of itinerant actors, tell basically the same tale, in slightly different ways, with differently named characters. They follow the ups and downs of the leader of a really bad theater troupe, on its last legs (not unlike the characters from Federico Fellini's first film, Variety Lights), who lands in a town and visits an old girlfriend who bore him a son. In both films, the son believes his father is really his uncle, and the major development in the films is how the father's jealous actress girlfriend tries to sabotage things by having a pretty young actress seduce the son, thus recapitulating the father's key moment in life, one the father believes ruined his chance at stardom and happiness.

If one is thinking that this is the stuff of pure melodrama, it is. But that's true only on the surface. This is where depth and execution of an art come into play. It also abnegates claims that Ozu eschewed plot in his films for melodrama is about nothing if but plot. While it's true he did not strive for A to B to C narratives, and preferred 'organic' story growth, the fact is that all his films had plots, and good ones. But they were not plot driven, nor dependent upon the heavyhanded machinations most drama and films rely upon. The difference between having a plot and being plot driven is something most critics seem to not understand. Ozu simply removes the superfluous plot moments and adds contemplative, poetic, and metaphoric shots in their place, what are termed 'pillow shots.' The emphasis is thus not on the driving, but the driver, of plot. After all, the tale of a parent who has a long lost child is not fresh, although the way it's told can be.

As for the films, the earlier one is actually the slightly better film, mostly because it's more concise- clocking in at 86 minutes vs. the two hour remake….In defense of the later film, it has more humor (one character from the troupe claims his name is Toshiro Mifune- the great star of so many Akira Kurosawa films; a nod to Ozu's rival), and the son's reaction to the news about his father seems a bit more mature and realistic than in the earlier film, while the mother seems more resigned to her lover's leaving, rather than being devastated- as in the earlier film. But the ending of the earlier film, on the train, is better, for when we see the troupe leader reunited with his love, and see the sleeping child, the earlier film leaves no doubt that the leader is wistfully thinking of his son, while the later film does not. Another plus that the later film has is its use of color and symbolism, which is far more striking. The opening scene contrasts a lighthouse in the background with a foregrounded bottle. It is a stunning visual image, and such phallic symbols abound in the film, as bottles are repeatedly seen, and there is a scene where the local prostitutes tease the male troupe members as they suck on popsicles. We then see the lighthouse from other perspectives over the course of the film. The earlier film is not set at a seaside town, but in a rural area, and the scene of the father and son fishing is superior in the later film, for there is no oddly stylized synchronization of the pair tossing their fishing lines into the river, over and again, as in the 1934 film, and what the duo speak of- their views on the father's approach to acting, is far more cogent than in the silent version, whose major moment is when the father drops his wallet into the running water. The later version also mimetically puts the father and son in the position of the bottle in relation to the lighthouse at the film's opening. What this means, from a phallic perspective, is open to several interpretations. Another major difference between the two films is that the earlier film has more motion in it- literally. It was made before Ozu got caught in his tatami mat point of view mode, and therefore the emotion of the drama is recapitulated better in the earlier, more kinetic, film….Both A Story Of Floating Weeds and Floating Weeds are proof that not all obsessions result in negativity, a thing one might remind oneself of the next time someone speaks ill of that trait. They are also fine examples of what made Yasujiro Ozu a great artist, even if the art in them might fall just a bit shy of overall greatness. Viva obsesión!?

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Intimate view of life as performed, 15 February 2012
7/10
Author: chaos-rampant from Greece

People float, their stories, the roles they perform and worlds they bring to life, this is the main thrust of the film.

So I have been recently surveying early Ozu as part of two personal quests: the first of these is where I'm looking for images of some purity from the first hours of cinema. The film is fine in this regard, Ozu's most renowned silent film about a kabuki actor returning with his troupe to his hometown to confront a difficult past. There is concentrated mind, a clear gaze. Composed shots, especially outdoors. But hardly any noticeable difference from his previous films. Why this is held in comparatively higher esteem than say Dragnet Girl or Passing Fancy, I posit has a lot to do with a more overt Japaneseness.

Earlier Ozus were distinctly modern: I Was Born But.. about schoolkids growing up in a rapidly Westernized Japan, Dragnet Girl about a young boxer drawn to the excitement of gangster life. Tokyo Woman unraveled like what was called a 'kammerspiel' in Weimar Germany. There was no benshi narrating these, as was the traditional norm adopted from Japanese theater. They employed the Western fashion of intertitles. Western garb for the leading players. References to movies, music records, boxing, corporate or factory work.

But this one has some of that exotic appeal that first fascinated the rest of the world about Japan. The same thing as the Mizoguchi revival in the 50's. For some reason, Western viewers are a lot more receptive to Japanese films that validate idealized preconceptions.

Now my other quest where this fits into, is films that visually or otherwise exemplify the karmic resonances that move our worlds. What kindles our emotional fires. In the best of cases, this means a storytelling part governed by a set of abstract parameters that control how we tell that story. How the world is in turn colored and appears to us. At around this time, in the West this was primarily being developed as film noir.

The Japanese are some of the most reliable to turn to for this: cultural seclusion cultivating purity, plus many actual practices for doing so - from gardening to making tea. The effort is to embody the world as it comes into being, this is the level that Western art has rarely managed to attain. It's worth getting to know about these things, if only to shatter those preconceptions. A tea ceremony is not about pomp or quaint etiquette but meditation.

So here we have a man who has abandoned his child and run off to play roles on a stage. Turns out he has become known for what is grouped together in kabuki as bandit plays, folk legends about heroic scoundrels. (a famous example of these that you have the chance to see adopted to film and from this era, is Kochiyama Soshun by Sadao Yamanaka).

Presumably this is how he views himself, a man who is wrong by conventional standards but deep inside pure.

Now and then he returns home, again playing a role. This early misdeed returns to haunt him: his son is seduced by a woman from his troupe, another actor performing a role. He learns the truth and in turn seems ready to run off. The whole thing replicates itself, recycling the same floating story. Only forgiveness can sever the destructive karma that has been set in motion.

Again this is fine and the film worth watching. What it's missing however, I believe is an additional layer that resolved ordinary drama on stage, conflating performance of the inner story with the one we are watching as our film about it. Transitory but precious humanity, rendered visually as a play passing through town. A lot of room for improvisation, as real life shapes the thing.

Imbalance that reflects impermanence is the key. Instead we get balanced drama.

If you have time and the resources and as example of what I'm talking about, I recommend that you look for a silent French film called Eldorado from '21, where a female dancer sublimates motherly woes into seductive dance. It is more primitive in some ways, but in others not.

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Acting up, 19 August 2011
Author: GyatsoLa from Ireland

This is one of the earliest Ozu films widely available, and the Criterion version is outstanding in quality.

Its a perfect example of Ozu at his best. Its a gem of a film - beautifully shot, a perfect structure, funny, sad and fascinating. The story is simple enough - a traveling troupe arrive at a town, not realizing the reason the chief actor picked the town is because an old flame of his lives here with his son. His current girlfriend in her jealousy tries to stir things up, but things don't turn out as either expect.

What is most striking about the film is just how modern it seems. The characters are believable and funny, the female characters are strong and willful, while even the minor characters are nicely sketched out. The acting is nothing short of brilliant, which makes the whole film very entertaining - this is no period piece of academic interest only, its a great work of art and a wonderful film - a masterpiece really.

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Near Perfect Original, 27 December 2009
9/10
Author: crossbow0106 from United States

I watched the DVD with the piano score, which I recommend. The film is about a traveling acting troupe who go to a village in Japan. Kihachi (a great Takeshi Sakamoto) has lover in this town, as well as a college age son, who doesn't know Kihachi is his father. Kihachi's present mistress Otaka sends younger member Otoki (the pretty Yoshiko Tsubouchi) to spend time with the boy, as an act of revenge after hearing of Kihachi's lover and son. I have seen the remake first and will again after this, but this version plays out perfectly. Its actually not much different, the main differences being the kind of locale (the remake is in a seaside village), this is silent and it is in black and white. I think you'll care about these characters. The great Ozu's approach is his patented simplicity in design and mood. The movie is mostly dramatic with the odd comic touch. Buy the double DVD and watch both versions. I think you'll find both very worthwhile.

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One of Ozu's Best Early Works, 10 September 2009
9/10
Author: Flak_Magnet from United States

This early career (1934) Yasujuro Ozu silent film is a personal favorite. A seminal work for Ozu, "A Story of Floating Weeds" is a remarkably modernist, concise film, and the story is powerfully moving. This picture is often argued as Ozu's first fully-realized, and it is an easy film to appreciate, with Ozu's quiet artistry on showcase throughout. (The patent imagery is here: laundry on lines, silent stairwells, passenger trains, hanging lights, etc.; as well as the simplistic, low-angle shooting style, resulting in a film that feels much more familiar to Ozu fans than its age would indicate. Established Ozu fans should notice some outliers, though, including realistic domestic violence and several moving dolly shots). The storyline involves a downtrodden traveling theater group, whose manager is reuninted with his estranged "nephew," (who is, in actuality, his son) and the young man's mother. What follows is a quiet, somber story of familial bonds, unrealizeable love, and the often impossible nature of personal happiness. It is also very much a film about the lower classes, whose plight is subject for this, Ozu's first metaphorical title. The "Floating Weeds" refers to duckweed, a floating plant often referenced in Japanese poetry, and it is emblematic of aimlessness, and the drifting lack of meaning in life. "A Story of Floating Weeds" is a movie about the flatsom and jetsom of Japanese society, whose destination is open to chance and whim. Perhaps equally importantly, "Floating Weeds" is a story about fathers and sons. It is timeless, fundamental stuff, and I'd argue some of Ozu's best.

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Lovely Early Japanese Film, 6 May 2009
9/10
Author: mcguffin2001 from New York, NY

I was able to see The Story of Floating Weeds for the first time recently, thanks to the Criterion Collection's DVD.

I was led to it when I came across Roger Ebert's list of his ten favorite films (written some time ago).

In his notes, Ebert claims Ozu shows us a "different cinematic language" but I find that kind of talk so much blather. Ozu uses his shots effectively to allow the actors to communicate the emotions being portrayed, especially necessary in this silent film.

A third rate company of traveling actors returns to a town after four years. The leader of the troupe had abandoned his lady in this town years before in order to tour with his company. He has fathered a son by the woman, whom he visits whenever he can, but his paternity is kept secret from his son.

What follows is the exposure of the secret and the effect it has on the lives of everyone involved, and some innocent bystanders as well.

The camera is almost always objective, the acting style is somewhat less melodramatic than in American silent films. There are excellent performances by all.

No time period is given for the story, but I have to assume it is earlier than the year the film was made (1934) because there are no automobiles, no radios, no telephones.

The enjoyment of Floating Weeds lies in the story itself and the ability of the director to tell it compellingly. If you demand car chases or food fights, this is not for you.

The Criterion DVD allows you to watch with or without the specially commissioned score. For first viewing, I recommend without.

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