alr

Tokyo Story
(Tokyo Monogatari)

Screening on Film
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu.
With Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara.
Japan, 1953, 35mm, black & white, 136 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.

Tokyo Story has regularly placed on the top ten lists of greatest films of all time, along with Rules Of the Game, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Citizen Kane. It should be seen at least once, if not once a year. An elderly couple journeys to Tokyo to visit their children and are confronted by indifference, ingratitude, and self-absorption. The traditional tatami-and-tea domesticity fairly crackles with vexation and discontent; only the placid daughter-in-law (Setsuko Hara, summoning up a life of disappointment) shows any kindness to the old people. When they are packed off to a resort by their impatient children, the film deepens into an unbearably moving meditation on mortality.

Part of film series

Read more

Yasujiro Ozu.
A Centennial Celebration

Other film series with this film

Read more

Ozu: Poet of the Everyday

Read more

Masterpieces of World Cinema

Read more

Masterworks of World Cinema

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more
Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

Carol for Another Christmas

Read more

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy