UKIGUSA/Floating Weeds (1959)

This a remake of Yasujiro Ozu’s 1935 film UKIGUSA MONOGATARI/A Story of Floating Weeds, which I have not seen. This time Ozu was working in colour to tell his story of a marriage breakup. With only one exception (a late comedy) I have always found Ozu’s films emotionally involving – his minute exploration of his characters against the background of everyday Japanese life shows a rare sensitivity. Among the films I have seen this reached its peek in the “Noriko” trilogy which culminated in the masterpiece TOKYO STORY. Ozu’s visual style is perfectly suited to the exploration of human emotions – virtually no camera movement with characters moving in and out of the frame and usually shot from the eye level of a kneeling person (being set in Japan we tend to get a lot of kneeling!). In FLOATING WEEDS a traveling Kabuki troupe arrive in a small town in southern Japan. They are led by a middle aged actor and his young wife. The latter learns to her consternation that her husband has an old girlfriend in the town and that he always visits her when passing through town. This, of course, is only the bare bone of the story – and, of course, there is a big secret revealed towards the film’s climax. I admit that I became more that usually involved in the film and identified strongly with one of the supporting characters because the revelation is one that I myself faced a few years ago. Ozu seems, as always, intensely sympathic to all he characters and finishes the film on a note of optimism. He doesn’t offer easy solutions but in the very moving last scene (how many other great movie scenes are set in railway station waiting rooms ? ) he seems to be saying “Just maybe……” Rating ****