Floating Weeds

A fairly ropy Japanese drama company are stranded in 50's Okinawa and slowly things fall apart as relationships start , are remembered and endure .

As Ozu fans will expect,this is a touching look at a group of people where despite some potentially melodramatic situations there is an air of unforced delicacy even though the troupe leader is a bit of a rogue .

There are members of the Ozu stock company , including Chishu Ryu , and a familiar wry humour and slightly mournfull understanding . Another gem (and in colour !) from one of the world's greatest directors .If you've not tried Ozu , please do .

Raving … I am entranced by Ozu’s films. They have several outstanding characteristics – superb visual presentation and gentle, frequently apparently inconsequential, introduction of content and characters, which progressively wind you in until you are tightly involved emotionally.

Further, Ozu’s cast of players, with whom you become increasingly familiar film by film, are impressively competent and convincing.

Then, a third point. I am still surprised (unjust prejudice?) by the feeling of humanity and wit - and concern, notably, for challenges facing women – in his films. Why should I not have expected that from Japan? Here we also have a major characteristic of Ozu's work: an instructively stoic attitude to life; a patient acceptance and management of outcomes which are far from satisfactory in themselves. It was very strongly evident in 'The Only Son', but is here also: the film does not have a happy ending. Indeed, it finishes rather than ends. There is no riding off into sunset, just the two red tail lights of a departing railway train going away into darkness. Those departing and those left behind have settled with a situation of which, patiently, they are going to make the best they can. Quite a lesson.

A final point, returning to the first. Ozu’s visual presentation may use a recognisable routine set of techniques – his interspersed uninvolved background scenes, his use of corridors and passages – emphasising of perspective - and of frames within frames. Is the technique too often repeated? - it is wonderfully polished. I found it well worthwhile to turn off both the sound and subtitles and simply admire the pictures … The subtitles are little loss: they are in white on a frequently largely white background and come fast - a torment to try to follow!

Overall, a superb film.

I like this film a lot. Ozu’s simple, static camera style builds up a quiet intensity, and allows you to simply observe the characters without distraction.

I was reminded of the modern French documentary “Etre Et Avoir”. Floating Weeds is too stylised to feel like a documentary, but you still get the sense of watching real people. The Film maker cares about them; they aren’t manipulated or ill-treated just to meet the demands of the plot. In fact watching them, and learning to get to know them IS the plot.

Floating Weeds is a wonderful evocation of post-war provincial Japan in transition, and a timeless study of the decline of traditional touring theatre: the rough trade of travelling thespians is contrasted with the tedium of life in a sleepy fishing village. The care and wit with which Ozu composes his shots reward close attention, while some of the scenes are reminiscent of Beckett and Pinter - superficially inane and stilted, but charged with suppressed violence as well as humour.

Very fine character study and authentic reprensitaon of Janese doemsetic and social life in the city in the late 50s under American occupation. Confict between traditional and contemporay Western values keenly depicted. Humour , tenderness , realism, everything.. Ozu was a great master.