Drifting thespians in Ozu's winding river

Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu was so enamored of one of his earlier films—A Story of Floating Weeds (1934)—that he decided to remake it in 1959 as, simply Floating Weeds, his first color movie. The narrative unfolds in a quaint seaside town where a traveling theater troupe, led by the aging actor Komajuro Arashi (played by Ganjiro Nakamura), comes to perform. Komajuro clandestinely reunites with his former lover, Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura), and their illegitimate son, Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), who is unaware of Komajuro's true identity as his father. The plot thickens as Komajuro's current mistress, Sumiko (Machiko Kyo), grows jealous and devises a plan to sabotage his bond with Oyoshi and Kiyoshi.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Floating Weeds, conducted last week, click here.

Ozu's direction is acclaimed for its simplicity, elegance, and precise composition as well as his poignant thematic exploration of family, jealousy, and the inexorable passage of time. It deeply delves into human emotions and relationships, particularly the intricate dynamics of familial bonds and the sacrifices made for art and personal connections, with sensitive and nuanced character portrayals adding significant depth.

Ozu considered the movie a test of sorts, challenging him to modernize a timeworn tale by contemporizing it and adapting it for a different studio (Dahei) than he was used to collaborating with. Many Ozu fans and scholars deem this his most visually beautiful film thanks to this chromatic canvas.

Noteworthy is that the color is more vibrant earlier in the film but becomes desaturated as the story progresses. Slant Magazine’s Jake Cole posited: “Miyagawa Kazuo’s cinematography gradually loses its chromatic intensity as backdrops become drabber and the bright objects that once dotted frames disappear from view. It’s the equivalent of watching someone bleed out, the redness in their face slowly draining into an ashen white. In the process, Ozu’s funniest late-period film becomes one of his most haunting.”

The title is much more than an abstract reference to the natural world. "Floating weeds" is a colloquialism that refers to Japanese performers who travel from place to place. The term metaphorically suggests aimlessness, an absence of life's purpose, and the journey through life. Its origin derives from duckweed, a floating plant that drifts with stronger currents and never anchors itself in the soil.

The filmmakers and the actor Nakamura Ganjirō intend Komajaro to be a likable personality the audience will, for the most part, root for. But it’s hard to empathize with or embrace Komajaro when we see how physically and verbally abusive he is toward the female characters; his slapping, pushing, grabbing, slut-shaming, and ghosting are difficult to stomach in 2024, even if these were more acceptable behaviors in a patriarchal-dominant Japan of 1959.

Hallmarks of director Yasujiro Ozu’s style are evident in Floating Weeds, including:

• A preference for static camera shots, avoiding typical movements like tracking, panning, or dollying and emphasizing characters' movements and positions within the frame.
• Shooting from low camera angles, often around three feet from the ground, framing subjects seated or kneeling on Japanese tatami mats.
• Transitioning between scenes with long shots of outdoor environments like rooftops, empty streets, shorelines, and cityscapes, eschewing traditional transitions like dissolves and wipes.
• Allowing shots to linger in empty spaces, defying traditional Hollywood editing rules of seamless cuts.
• Emphasizing everyday life nuances over elaborate storytelling techniques and focusing on human emotions rather than effects or editing.
• Placing the camera between two characters during dialogue scenes, which creates intimacy by having characters look directly at the camera when speaking to each other.
• Ensuring no single character dominates a scene, often showing two or three characters in a row.
• Lingering on characters during their speeches without cutting to reactions from other characters.
• Allowing situations and conversations to unfold naturally without subplots or distractions, focusing on emotions and relationships rather than extensive cityscape shots or detailed events.
• A narrative depicting contemporary Japan, not a period piece or samurai film preferred by peers like Kurosawa or Mizoguchi.
• Elliptical storytelling. “Ozu typically uses narrative ellipsis, giving the spectator just enough information to allow him to make sense of the actions, but no more. Perhaps one of the reasons for the fascination of the Ozu film is that the spectator is so often called upon to bridge the ellipsis, to create a connection that the director deliberately left out, to contribute and hence to understand,” remarked Donald Ritchie in his Criterion Collection essay.
• Presenting narratives that are understated, straightforward, unassuming, contemplative, serene, and often tinged with a wistful or melancholic tone. Works like Floating Weeds harbor profound meaning and unexpectedly deep emotional layers, despite their apparent simplicity.

Text and subtext mingle commonly in Ozu films, and Floating Weeds is no exception. This is a story about generational and hierarchical conflict between parents and children as well as adults and their elders. Komajaro commands respect from his theater troupe, mistress, secret son Kiyoshi, and his lover Kayo, but he often disrespects many of them by exerting his patriarchal superiority, as established and recognized by the class system of Japan.

Floating Weeds also examines the small and large consequences of secrets and lies. There are two major deceptions afoot in Floating Weeds: Komajaro and Oyoshi hide from Kiyoshi that his uncle is actually his father; and Kayo agrees to Sumiko’s request to pretend to like Kiyoshi, although she develops true affection for him despite the charade.

The film is further concerned with performance and playacting. This is the tale of a band of itinerant thespians, but it’s also a narrative concerned with pretense, role-playing, and metaphorical mask-wearing.

Consider, too, how the film probes the rewards and risks of personal reinvention, as evidenced by how most of the major characters choose new paths in life by the story’s conclusion: Komajaro shifts from nomadic actor to domesticated father back to nomadic actor again; Sumiko transitions from obedient, reliable partner to jealous meddler and then back to subservient mistress by the conclusion; Kiyoshi begins as a dutiful son/student/worker but is willing to abandon future aspirations for love, ending the film on a somewhat ambiguous tone; and Kayo, it’s established, is a promiscuous young actress with a poor reputation but proves humble and genuine in her love of Kiyoshi, and we assume she will do right by the young man, per Komajaro’s request, after the story ends. Here, the theme of generational change is underscored, as the older pair transitions in a circuitous pattern while the younger couple faces a more uncertain future but one in which they may avoid the mistakes their elders made.

Similar works

• The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
• Still Walking (2008)
• Our Little Sister (2015)
• After the Storm (2016)

Other major films by Ozu

• Late Spring
• Early Summer
• An Autumn Afternoon
• Late Autumn
• Tokyo Twilight