Film: Good Morning
Release date: 17th January 2011
Certificate: U
Running time: 205 mins
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishû Ryû, Kuniko Miyake, Haruko Sugimura
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
In a world where the mundane hides meaning, it’s what’s left unspoken that is most poignant. Communication and real people is what Yasujirô Ozu listlessly investigates in his recently re-released Good Morning, an engaging snatch of life in a mediocre Japanese community.
How does a filmmaker plot real life? Minimally, if they use Ozu’s approach. The narrative is threadbare, almost to the point on non-existence. Although it is scripted, ‘documentary’ springs to mind.
Whilst schoolboys are busy envying each other and making vows of silence, their mothers are occupied with finger pointing when the Women’s Group’s fees go missing - but more to the point, Mrs Haraguchi has a new washing machine! Her recent acquisition certainly ruffles a few feathers, and gives the women something to cluck about, even incurring accusations between mother and daughter. Gossip and bickering is consistent, but no-one ever really listens to each other, much less take action.
Upon beginning the film, viewers may expect this saga to come to a climactic conclusion after an hour or so of tension. A solution is reached, but not with the drama that other directors would feel obliged to create.
In addition to the money mystery, Ozu inserts a few subplots, which resemble frivolous anecdotes more than narratives. Two young brothers get up to harmless antics and demand a television set from their parents like their friends have. A pensioner is driven back to work to cover the cost of living. A bachelor and a young lady are on the cusp of a relationship, only they’re too scared to admit it. But isn’t it these little things that make life what it is?
That is why Good Morning forms such a strong bond with the viewer; establishing a shared understanding. Ozu presents audiences with a candidly dull account of life, which is thoroughly universal and timeless. To the onlooker who watches from the outside, nothing really happens, but actually an awful lot does go on within. Take the budding couple, for example - who hasn’t felt that silent swell of excitement and affection for another person at some point in their life? Those uneventful family meals that host squabbling siblings and trifling inconveniences have undoubtedly been lived by audience members. Ozu engages on a level seldom seen in the arts for fear of boring the consumer; but in this case, its very monotony is what makes the film memorable.
If the characters’ lack of purpose is most striking within the film, then cinematic style holds the fort without. Over the course of the film, it will dawn on viewers how effectively these two matters work together here, strengthening the laborious pace that is established from the start. Static cameras and an overall omission of movement may initially go undetected - one of those clever techniques which manages to create effect without drawing attention to itself – but when the finger finally lands on what exactly is feeding this atmosphere, it adds to the intentional frustration at lack of progress within the narrative.
Camera angles also feel odd and bizarre. Viewers frequently find themselves on the floor, watching the feet of characters who enter and exit the scene reminding them of Japanese culture. Cinematographer Yûharu Atsuta truly makes his presence known, however, through a peculiar obsession with straight lines and right angles; a visual clue to Ozu’s study of conformity. Interior design, patterns on clothing, and the village layout are dominated by squares and rectangles, and should just one of those lines be broken, it would immediately ruin the entire shot. This is equally the case within Ozu’s community, where change is an alien concept. This highly structured and rather artificial environment is also reflected in characters’ movement. Controlled to the point of choreography, paths rarely meet on the street so that characters are always alone, just missing the chance to interact with others.
Whilst the tedium of life makes Good Morning as applicable today as when it was made, several traits also mark it as a film of its time. That phobia of individuality dates and locates it perfectly, but so do other trivialities. Made at the end of the 1950s, the decade’s leap forward in technology is addressed here with implications of progress and youth; afterall, the other invention that the ‘50s saw was the advent of adolescence. Good Morning bears witness to a generational split, emphasised by the reoccurrence of gadgets. Whilst some are swayed by “idiot boxes” and appliances, others are struggling to resist the wind of change, determined to uphold their traditionally familiar home. But Ozu seems to maintain that technology is the way forward, for that pensioner who returns to work is doing so as an electrical salesman.
Also included on the re-release of Good Morning is one of Ozu’s earlier efforts, I Was Born, But… , a compelling coming-of-age story and a powerful statement on overwhelming capitalism.
I Was Born, But… centres around a middle-class version of the families we see in Good Morning, complete with two inseparable brothers who learn a massive life lesson. This family, however, are driven by what the later family lack: a determination to succeed and become “important.” The father works for a powerful company beneath his manager, whom he makes every effort to charm, for what is ambition and achievement without promotion?
His passion for prominence has inevitably been engrained on the minds of his sons, who evidently feel pressure on their own academic performance. A spanner is thrown into the works, however, by the school bullies. The playground predators make school life intolerable, spurring the miserable brothers to sacrifice their grades and skip classes.
Not only do their grades slip, but they also learn that their father might not practice exactly what he preached. The boys’ blind admiration is cast into doubt when they realise that dad isn’t as respectable as they were led to believe. In this humiliating scene, the boys’ acceptance by their peers, which they have worked - and paid - so hard to win, is also placed under threat; this is no minor problem to a child, nor in a society where approval means everything.
I Was Born, But… is a sceptical reflection of the domineering commercialism of the superficial West. The entire premise of the film is balanced upon the ruthless realities brought on by modern capitalism. Sadly, material achievement takes precedence over happiness and the young brothers’ rather touching introduction to this makes Ozu’s statement all the more brutal.
“Reality TV” is a term that has been thrown around for almost two decades, but Ozu was ahead of the game. Bravely admitting that reality isn’t all excitement, he even pre-dates the British Realism trend of the 1960s. Some may find comfort in his film’s modesty, reassurance that life doesn’t have to be all thrills. Others may choose to take it as a warning. Escapism certainly isn’t one of Good Morning’s allures, but empathy and insight might be. RS
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