Good Morning

I feel like we American moviegoers don't see enough of Japan's cinematic gentle side. When we think of Japanese cinema over here, we think of violent Samurai epics, intense, hyper-stylized anime, or men in monster suits pummeling each other over miniature cityscapes. There are, of course, all kinds of movies in Japan; it's just rare that a small, heartwarming domestic comedy finds it's way across the Pacific.

Yasujiro Ozu's 1959 classic, Good Morning, is just that, a gentle satire about communication and the way we all fit together. It follows the day-to-day lives of several families living in a tiny suburban cluster of homes. The wives spend their days gossiping about each other, the husbands fret about their jobs and getting by, and the local boys practice farting on command on the way to and from school.

When I said the living area is tiny, I mean tiny. No room for yards, no driveways, the homes all face each other with nothing but a narrow pathway between them. There is hardly an interior shot in the movie that isn't shot through at least one open doorway, sometimes with more in the frame. With the close proximity, crowded living areas, and paper-thin walls, there's no room for privacy either. The neighbors walk right into each others' houses to talk. One husband mistakenly comes into the wrong house after a night of drinking.

Anyway, the story kicks into gear when one of the families gets a television set, and two of the boys go over to watch sumo wrestling. They decide then and there that they want a TV too. When they ask, their parents say no. When they demand, their parents still say no. When they yell, their parents say no, and be quiet. They then resolve to do just that. Minoru, the older boy, says that adults talk all the time and don't ever say a thing that matters, so he and Isamu, the younger, decide not to speak again until they get that TV.

The two lead boys are excellent. The younger one dresses in the same brown sweater and mimics the older one's every move. I love that little boys loved farting in the 1950's. I had an inkling that that was the case, but you can't find a trace of evidence that people even farted in American movies until, let's see, the earliest movie fart I'd ever heard before this was Blazing Saddles, so let's say 1974?

The movie is loaded with little stories and subplots, all about communication, and sometimes miscommunication. The wives are in a tizzy about a new washing machine that they believe was purchased with stolen dues from the neighborhood group they're in. A pushy salesman won't leave them be. The boys' teacher has a crush on their aunt, and can't express the words for it. Everything and everybody is tied together by life. Ozu expresses this very poetically with an ever-present network of telephone wires in the background. You see them in just about every external shot, crisscrossing the sky.

Another theme of the movie is poking fun at the onset of television. The boys, of course, love it. The father worries that TV is going to create a nation of idiots. This was especially interesting to me, and even prescient, because, in modern times, Japanese culture is probably the most willing in the world to embrace new technologies. The father's hesitance almost marks the end of a generation. Then there's the issue of the boys' insistence that adults make no conversation but meaningless chatter. Isn't that just what the father is trying to prevent by keeping the TV out of the house?

That is the essence of Good Morning. Sometimes more significance can be found in chatter than in meaningful words. Sometimes a world can be communicated by saying nothing at all. Sometimes talking just leads to misunderstandings.

In some ways, Good Morning reminded me of the last movie I reviewed, Summer Wars. Despite also being a hyper-stylized anime, that, too, explored the internal workings of family, and also, mirrored it with a burgeoning new technology. I can't help but wonder if Mamoru Hosoda was in any way influenced by this movie in making his film.

I wholeheartedly recommend Good Morning. It's a nice, simple story with a theme that transcends cultures. I also think it would be a great film to show a class of, say, 10 or 11 year old kids. There's a lot to talk about in it, and it would be a great way to introduce kids to the concept of subtitles, something many Americans grow up way too afraid of. Besides, what 10-year-old doesn't laugh at fart jokes?