Good Morning - Criterion Collection

Good Morning - Criterion Collection
by Yasujiro Ozu

Good Morning - Criterion Collection
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Chishu Ryu, Haruko Sugimura, Keiji Sada, Kuniko Miyake, Yoshiko Kuga
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-08-22
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion

Movie Reviews of Good Morning - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: Good comedy
Summary: 4 Stars

Of the Big Three Japanese film directors from last century, who were known in the West, Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa, and Yasujiro Ozu, Ozu is by far the least well known, and this is because he was probably the least technically innovative of the troika. But, that is not the same as saying he was the least accomplished. In fact, his 1959 social comedy of manners, Good Morning (Ohayo), set in a modern Tokyo suburban subdivision, is in many ways far more relevant than the more famed period pieces the other directors made, for it has a definite Western sensibility. Ozu seemed to be obsessed with documenting history, but history as it was lived, not re-imagined. He was acutely aware of his role as a social documentarian, if in a fictive sense. It was also his third color film, and on the surface it would seem to narratively square very easily with the 1950s era American television comedies, as the central story of the film revolves around two brothers' silent protest over their clan's refusal to modernize and buy a tv like their friend's family has. It all seems very Beaver Cleaver, but appearances are not everything, especially when the patina is crafted by a Master from another culture.
Most of the film is shot in Ozu's famed and unjustly derided low camera angle, with a static lens, lending the charge of `minimalism' to his style. Yet, while that may be true in certain technical aspects, the truth is that the film, written by Ozu and Kogo Noda, is very multi-layered, deftly weaving low comedy- such as excessive farting, and all the modernism that entails, as the boys play a game where one boy presses another's forehead and he farts in response, with deeper social commentary on alcoholism, the `generation gap'- that old saw of the era, unemployment, and the bile of social gossip. The seemingly carefree farting of the children is thus deftly contrasted with the often ineffective social mechanisms of the adults. The title of the film, in fact, has an ironic meaning, for Ozu casts it as being said mostly in a negative and perfunctory way.... Compared with American suburban films from later years, like Ordinary People, or even films made in the last decade, like The Ice Storm or American Beauty, this film does not seem dated, especially compared to American film comedies of the era. Compare it even to a typical Billy Wilder comedy of the era and Ozu's superiority is manifest, almost as much as a fart is to some meaningless bon mot. Ain't art wonderful?
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Summary of Good Morning - Criterion Collection

Ozu's hilarious Technicolor re-working of his silent I Was Born, But. . ., Good Morning (Ohayo) is the story of two young boys in suburban Tokyo who take a vow of silence after their parents refuse to buy them a television set. Shot from the perspective of the petulant brothers, Good Morning is an enchantingly satirical portrait of family life that gives rise to gags about romance, gossip, and the consumerism of modern Japan.
By the time he made Good Morning in 1959, Yasujiro Ozu had completely eliminated camera movement from his uniquely simple but elegant directorial style. He chose instead to emphasize static but meticulously purposeful compositions that rarely, if ever, wavered from their recognizable low-angle perspective. In Good Morning, this observational approach is put to sublime use to establish setting (a late-'50s Tokyo suburb) and to view the world through the eyes of the film's central characters--two young brothers who take a mutual vow of silence to protest their parents' refusal to buy a TV set. Their father claims that television will create "a million idiots," while their mother is angered by the boys' neglect of schoolwork in favor of watching sumo wrestling on a neighbor's TV.

In Ozu's hands, this sublimely simple conflict inspires a comedic exploration of Japan at the dawn of its electronic age, when consumerism and materialism are in vogue, salesmen solicit their wares in constant door-to-door visits, and even the purchase of a washing machine can prompt neighbors into a frenzy of gossipy speculation. Funniest of all are the conspiratorial brothers, who play an amusing variation of "pull my finger" (proving that even great directors can indulge a fart joke if they choose), and employ their silent strategy with the stubbornness that only children can get away with. Through it all, Ozu develops a handful of intermingling themes of love, communication, goodwill, and the changing of societal traditions. Utterly simple on the surface, Good Morning reveals its complexity in careful proportion, with the affectionate humanity that was Ozu's greatest gift. --Jeff Shannon

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