Screening 35mm & 16mm film prints from studio vaults, film archives, and private collections.
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Tokyo Story
Wednesday, April 24 @ 7:30 PM / NEIU — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the doorTOKYO STORY
Directed by Yasujirō Ozu • 1953
Yasujirō Ozu’s nuanced and beautifully realized portrait of postwar life in Japan is a depiction of family, and of the consequences of belonging to one—among them joy, connection, regret, and grief. By the time of Tokyo Story‘s 1953 release, Ozu had directed 39 features and 6 shorts in a career that started in 1927. Taking inspiration from Hollywood’s 1937 drama Make Way for Tomorrow, an intergenerational family story set in the aftermath of the Great Depression, he set out to make Tokyo Story. Despite Ozu’s assertion that it’s his most melodramatic feature, it is a perfect introduction to his distinctive visual style and his narrative preoccupations. Through his signature cutaways, he depicts the modernization and Westernization of Tokyo. Like many of his other movies, it is also a domestic drama (although the director remained famously unmarried). The grandparents, Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama) and Shukichi (frequent Ozu collaborator Chishū Ryū) aren’t perfect; we meet Shukichi as an amiable elder, not as a compulsive drinker. The children carry pain too. The movie’s lone hero is their widowed daughter-in-law (Ozu regular Setsuko Hara), a character already painfully acquainted with loss. If only being a part of a family was simple. Tokyo Story does not condemn the offspring (although their selfish dismissiveness does rattle). If anything, it takes great pains to show one of the causes of this fissure. They are not deliberately cruel. It contributes to the movie’s potent universality. They are busy. They are distracted. The world had changed. As Tokyo transforms, so does the family over three generations. (RIN)
136 min • Shochiku • 35mm from Janus Films
Preceded by: Harry and Tonto trailer (1974) – 35mmNEXT UP: May 2 at 6:45 PM @ Music Box – MASTER AND COMMANDER
Upcoming screenings:
View all upcoming screenings & venue info →
Sat 4/20 at 7:00 PM @ CFS Office
Films to Dance to with Kioto Aoki (RSVPs are closed for this program)
Wed 4/24 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Tokyo Story
Thur 5/2 at 6:45 PM @ Music Box
Master and Commander • Advance Tickets
Sat 5/11 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
The Ship of Lost Men
Wed 5/15 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Frankenstein
Wed 5/22 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
The Spirit of the Beehive
Wed 6/5 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Children of the Beehive
Sat 6/22 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
Japanese Girls at the Harbor
Wed 6/26 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Trouble in Paradise
Wed 7/3 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
The Day I Became a Woman
Sun 7/14 at 7:00 PM @ Music Box
Mantrap
Wed 7/17 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Minnie & Moskowitz
Wed 7/24 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
The Jackie Robinson Story
Mon 7/29 at 7:00 PM @ Music Box
Medium Cool
Wed 8/7 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Beauty and the Beast
Wed 8/14 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
There’s Always Tomorrow
Wed 8/28 at 7:30 PM
The Coca-Cola Kid
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