THE ONLY SON
Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
1936
Criterion Channel

This piece originally ran on September 23, 2019 in The Solute. Please follow the link at the end of this preview for the full piece – there is no paywall.

“Life’s tragedy begins with the bond between parent and child.” 

The Only Son, Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu’s first talkie (and 35th film) u, opens with this brief, unattributed axiom. A brief prologue introduces us to Ozu’s famous  style and tone— shooting subjects head-on, looking directly into the camera to confront the viewer with their emotional culpability. But we also see a parochial pre-war Japan where a mother (Choko Iida) cannot afford to send her son to middle school. A visit from the elementary school teacher reveals both the son’s lie about his future and the impossible but  important task of adapting to a world that will change Japan very, very soon. 

So begins a tale of a simple drama — a mother gives her last remaining days of youth to support her son, and after graduating college, he doesn’t respect her enough to tell her when he gets married or when he has a child. His justification is that he hasn’t become successful enough as a businessman — he is living in shame, but his mother is far less hurt by his fiscal “lack of success” and more by the man he has become.

Read the rest on The Solute.