Tokyo Chorus
(Tokyo no Gassho)
Live Musical Accompaniment
Screening on Film
Screening on Film
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu.
With Tokihiko Okada, Emiko Yagumo, Hideo Sugawara.
Japan, 1931, 35mm, black & white, silent, 91 min.
With Tokihiko Okada, Emiko Yagumo, Hideo Sugawara.
Japan, 1931, 35mm, black & white, silent, 91 min.
An office worker is dismissed from his position in an insurance company when he stands up for a colleague in a minor dispute. Facing the financial demands of his family, he walks the street looking for work until he meets an old high school teacher now managing a restaurant. As is often the case with Ozu’s films of this period, Tokyo Chorus begins as comedy and darkens into social critique. Striking chords similar to I Was Born, But ... the film poignantly illustrates the nobility of parenthood as the children accept that the father they admired has become a humble worker in order to feed his family.