For an old, slow-burning film, Tokyo Story (1953/Ozu) is a remarkable cinematic work. For those who feel bored during Spaghetti Westerns, look away now: Tokyo Story takes the tortoise's route, and slow and steady really does win the race. A fair warning in advance, I will probably spoil the film, but to be honest there isn't exactly a twist, instead it is how Ozu portrays events that are most important.

Essentially the story examines dysfunction within a rather ordinary (albeit apart form the post-war setting) family. One in three Japanese people live in Tokyo, this wasn't always the case but this film is set as more and more people flock there. An old couple travel from Onomichi, Hiroshima to Tokyo to see their children. As we may all sympathise with, the children feel burdened by sharing their homes with their parents and treat them rather coldly in places. All are too busy working to take them out, and they even send them to an onsen in Atami to get them out of their hair.

Of all the people, their son's widow is kindest; taking time to be with them and putting up the mother when they return from Atami to find themselves unwanted in their eldest daughter's home. The eldest daughter is an interesting character; she is two-faced, selfish and lacking tact. She even prevents her husband from taking her parents out and having them enjoy their time in Tokyo. The eldest son, a doctor, is busy with his patients and forbids his wife from leaving the house alone. Furthermore, but more forgivablely, the eldest son's young children treat their homes, parents and grandparents with less respect than all would be accustomed to. More remarkably, the old couple complain not once, only making light of their situation.

On their return home, the mother falls ill and eventually dies. The eldest son, daughter, and the widow travel overnight to be there with the critically ill mother and her husband, but the son who lives closest is busy at work and only arrives after his mother has died. Even before setting off, however, the eldest children seem more concerned with taking the right clothes for a possible funeral and sorting out their schedules than rushing home. Guilt obviously eats at the youngest son during the funeral ceremony, and he feels the need to leave the room. But during the wake, following a decision by his elder siblings to return to Tokyo, he feels he must get back to Osaka and get to work, perhaps even catching a baseball match. The children, except the youngest daughter who still lives with her parents, off-load the task of looking after the father onto the widow. And yes, they leave, not without the eldest daughter attempting to secure the prized keepsakes.

Both members of the old couple felt bad, but both suffered silently, only confiding in each other. The father seems upset, but rather unsurprised to admit that the widow did more for him than any of his children (perhaps a little unfair on the youngest), and the youngest also tells her that she can't understand her siblings. The widow admits that it happens to everyone... a vision I find utterly distressing. She says that there comes a time when all people begin to think of their own lives above those of their parents. That much I can agree with, but being callous and apathetic to another human is something I am not well-versed in.

Perhaps I will see her logic. Perhaps at some point, my parents will visit me in Japan and I will replay parts of the movie. It would not be so far-fetched... at all times, the movie seems credible, and its this warts-and-all realism that makes it such an interesting character study, and so relevant in this other place and other time.

Another interesting thread in the film is that perhaps their father was difficult to live with in their childhood. Once an alcoholic and hard-worker, perhaps the father has now reaped what he had sown; but if that is so, then it is even more tragic that it is the mother that suffered. Such a view would explain the lingering presence of the youngest daughter, for whom he quit the sauce, and the implied unpleasantness of the widow's dead husband. Perhaps the father is trying to make up for lost time, but the continuing love of his wife would suggest no lasting damage.

There is much to identify with in this film, if you can stand its age and pace you will find it thought-provoking. At a time when the family is being broken up more by work, especially relevant in the film's homeland, perhaps there is something we should learn...