A Mother Should Be Loved
(Haha wo kowazuya)
Screening on Film
With Obinata Den, Mitsui Hideo, Yoshikawa Mitsuko.
Japan, 1934, 35mm, black & white, silent, 73 min.
Japanese intertitles with English subtitles.
Print source: Janus Films
Ozu originally wished for the title of A Mother Should be Loved to be Tokyo Twilight, but the studio requested something more topically specific. Though the 1957 film Ozu eventually titled Tokyo Twilight is widely regarded as a masterwork, A Mother Should be Loved is its overlooked but essential precedent. After the Kajiwara patriarch’s passing, his eldest son Sadao (Obinata Den) learns that that the woman who raised him (Chieko, played by Yoshikawa Mitsuko) is his father’s second wife. Sadao suspects that Chieko treats him and his half-brother Kosaku (Mitsui Hideo) differently, but Ozu does not supply any easy answers as to whether or not the accusation is true. Ozu’s interest as a filmmaker lies in delivering two entwined lessons: the mother must acknowledge that she has made mistakes; the sons must love their mother in spite of her mistakes and their different parentages. The film’s concentration of conflict almost entirely within the home marks an important pivot for Ozu as his films turn further inward. The faint details of the outside world—death, debts, delinquency—are only important insofar as they propel the family to transcend false lines of division and grow closer.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Late Spring
Tokyo Story
Early Summer
Passing Fancy
Dragnet Girl
Tokyo Story
A Story of Floating Weeds
Days of Youth
The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice
Early Spring
The Munekata Sisters
Floating Weeds
Good Morning
Late Autumn
Tokyo Twilight
The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family
I Flunked, But …
Late Autumn
Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?
The End of Summer
Early Spring
Café Lumière
Tokyo Story
