Generational wounds in Tokyo Story (1953)
Widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story is a quiet, gentle yet tragic family drama about the distance that can grow between elderly parents and their adult children. It's a critique of the transformation of culture and mores in postwar Japan, particularly the loss of filial piety, but it's not just specific to Japanese culture. The film holds a mirror up to both parents and children, and if it is critical of those who fail to honor and love their elderly parents, it also shows that this is often a result of the parents having failed their children when they were younger. Tokyo Story should provoke an examination of conscience in viewers of every generation.
Irish Catholic multimedia commentator Ruadhan Jones returns to the podcast to discuss this canonical work of Japanese cinema.
Links
Ruadhan Jones links https://linktr.ee/ruadhanjones
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Music is The Duskwhales, “Take It Back”, used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com