Tokyo boshoku / Tokyo Twilight (1957) :
Brief Review -
Yasujiro Ozu's dark and hard take on unavoidable facts of parenthood, childhood and married life. Tokyo Twilight is known as Ozu's one of the Darkest film ever but frankly speaking it isn't that dark to be called so. It is just the longer runtime of 140 minutes, a bit longer than his previous flicks that makes it little streched and slow film. You'll see the same techniques, same storytelling and similar filmmaking from Ozu while he explores more detailing of characters this time. Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot take the truth of being abandoned as a child. We see Four main characters here, one is father, one is mother and two sisters-one married and one single. Two of them are positive and good (The father and his elder daughter) whereas two are pretty spoiled and with wrongdoings (the mother and younger daughter). Naturally, those two positive characters make sense and the rest two are highly insensible and wrong who feels like the minuses in the writing. Cinematography is yet again top class just like all Ozu films. I love this thing about his films that he gives pauses and slow attributes to daily life activities. The scenes which don't contribute much to take the screenplay forward are always used by him to give us that real life feel. Acting by Ineko Arima, Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu and Isuzu Yamada is perfect. The background score is used very well and strictly according to the situations. Hear that clock tickling in background in the last conversation between Ryu and Hara, just Amazing. Overall, Ozu makes another superb film on family issues but this one is very much about accepting those unavoidable duties of parenthood, childhood and married life. And yes some are positive and some are negative but what can we do? That's Life.
RATING - 7/10*
By - #samthebestest
