He is utterly alone -- but was he utterly alone when his wife was still alive?
Ozu's mannerisms of directing are very eccentric if you are not used to them. He uses low shooting positions, as if the camera itself is bowing, group compositions in profile and restful tableaux of outdoor landscapes (often showing railway lines or stations) or empty interiors to cleanse the viewer's palate between scenes. He does not fade or dissolve between scenes, but crisply cuts. Oddly, his characters will often speak straight into the camera for dialogue exchanges -- something that would get today's film-school students hit across the knuckles with a ruler. It is a style so formally distinctive and stylized as virtually to constitute a kabuki-cinema language of Ozu's own invention.
After Tokyo Story, Ozu made another eight films, all of them superbly accomplished, though arguably not achieving the sublime quality of this movie. Hara was a legend in her home country for never marrying and having children -- all but unthinkable in Japanese society -- and became known as the "eternal virgin," having effectively devoted herself to the great director. Ten years after the film was made, she sensationally retired from the movies at the height of her fame and now, at 85 years old, holds a Salinger-like fascination for certain sections of the media as she has always refused to be interviewed or photographed.
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