The Story of Tokyo

Within a few years of the film Tokyo Story, the city of Tokyo became the most populous city in the world (1955).  Japan was undergoing an economic boom that would last until the early 1990's, the so-called Japanese Economic Miracle.  Does this movie reflect the economic expansion and social growth of that time?  What does it feel like to visit/work/live in Tokyo in the 1950's? What, if anything, is this film telling us about the benefits -- or costs -- of economic development?

Mono No Aware

Mono no aware is the Japanese idea of the awareness of the transience of beauty and the ultimate sadness of life. After watching Tokyo Story can you better understand this concept? What were your emotional feelings at the end of the film? What were you thinking when you saw the final image: the old man alone in the house fanning himself? Are there other moments when you felt the sadness and the beauty of life?

All in the Family

 Tokyo Story shows the relationship between two aged parents and their grown children. On a visit to Tokyo to visit their children, who turn out to be more busy and less successful than they supposed, they are unceremoniously shuffled from child to child and eventually to a resort. By the end of their trip, the mother relies on the kindness of her son's widow and the father becomes drunk and is escorted by the police to his daughter's home. Returning home the mother becomes sick and dies. The children return for the funeral and leave their father alone. How accurate is this portrayal of family life? Is this a "slice of life" (and part of the reason it feels as if "nothing happens")? Does this remind you of your family? Is this how families work? Focus on one scene or character and discuss what it tells us about the dynamics of family life.

Past As Prologue

Rashomon is an example of the jidai-geki genre of Japanese cinema or "period film" that tells a story from a period of Japanese history (and it is part of the subgenre of samurai films, kinda).  Sometimes storytellers set a story in the past as a way to indirectly criticize or even condemn the present.  Given what you know about Japanese history circa. 1950, including Japan's experience in World War 2 and its immediate aftermath, is the film a critique of the politics or culture or morality of that time?  Is the period of the film in any way analogous to the 1950's Japan?

The Rashomon Effect

Ever since Rashomon splashed onto the world stage in 1950, critics and scholars have debated its meaning.  The renown American film critic Pauline Kael, for one, gave her interpretation of the so-called Rashomon effect.  For her Rashomon is the "classic film statement of relativism, the unknowability of truth."  In other words, according to her view, the film argues not that the narrators are unreliable or lying but there is no definitive truth and each narrator shares their subjective truth.

 Is Kael correct?  Is this the proper view?  Or is the film saying something different?  What, if anything, is the film saying about truth, knowledge or egoism?

A Gated Community?

At the beginning of Rashomon three strangers take shelter from an intensive downpour beneath Rashomon Gate, one of the main entrances to the old imperial capital of Kyoto.  The Gate is abandoned except for the three and it is dilapidated and falling apart.  

Does the Gate (and its state of disrepair) suggest something about a theme or idea in the movie?  What about the way it is filmed (including things like camera distance and framing)?   Is the Gate a symbol in the film?