Good Morning (1959)

Synopsis: GOOD MORNING, a slightly revised remake of his earlier film, I WAS BORN, BUT..., is Yasujiro Ozu's subtle yet madcaped tale of the suburban Japanese family in crisis. The threat comes in the form... GOOD MORNING, a slightly revised remake of his earlier film, I WAS BORN, BUT..., is Yasujiro Ozu's subtle yet madcaped tale of the suburban Japanese family in crisis. The threat comes in the form of a television, demanded by two young brothers and refused by their traditional suburban father. Upon being told to "shut up" in response to their ardent requests for a television, the boys do just that, refusing to speak even the customary small talk of "good morning", so essential to the social structure of Japanese culture. As a neighborhood-wide quarrel results, small vignettes of other miniature crisis of Western culture versus Japanese tradition are played before the camera; an old man is unable to get a job and gets drunk, a grandmother faces her uncaring extended family, a woman is forced to move out of the neighborhood because her morals are in question, etc. These tragi-comic portraits combine to evoke a radiant sense of life and end by displaying the threatened suburbia as a vital society. The boy's refusal to speak catalyzes a sharp and succinct portrait of the importance of the "small talk" and other banal details of everyday life. [More]

Starring: Chishu Ryu

Starring: Chishu Ryu

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

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