There couldn’t be a simpler film one could see, yet still have so much emotional bearing. In the story of an old couple visiting their children in 50s Tokyo, where urbanity is still a work in progress, we see how the rural Japanese take advantage of the routinely peace they have in their everyday lives—so it’s big feat then to cross the country and disrupt their homely affinities.
Not forcing any emotions to the audience, Ozu’s take on how the couple’s children talk about their parents and how they interact with them recognizes the disparity of both circumstances: in front of their parents they are still respectful but disengaged figures; but behind their backs they seem to be more active in complaining about their time-consuming presence in their households.
But what separates the movie from the vexation of the children, and their clumsy efforts to drive them away in the city, would be the warm and welcoming Noriko, who, if one would pay close attention, could be the film’s driving force and stark reminder of Japanese themes of casting a strong importance to family. Noriko was the wife of their son who died in the war, and yet she seems to be the closest one to the couple, a figure that seems to have never drifted from the family even years after her husband’s death.
Although the parents discuss their disappointment toward their children’s lukewarm treatment of them, we never once hear them compare their actions to Noriko’s, but it’s bluntly obvious. Setsuko Hara, who plays the wonderful Noriko, lays claim and ennobles her character through her coy smiles and shy but prideful ownership of her life as a widow. We see throughout the movie how committed she is making the couple feel at home, which somehow brings in a sour anger towards the children. One could narrow it down to the conclusion that it might have been her way of feeling closer to her husband, or it could be just her nature as person, or both.
In 50s Japan, family destruction because of the war and modernization is a hard pill one should swallow: Children drift apart from their parents as they move, parents retain their lives as peaceful as they could, and nothing stays the same. Ozu carefully breaks through this sentiment, without leaving out the elements of indifference in the face of the children and familiarity in the person of a non-blood relative. No emotions are forced, and yet the comeuppance of the conclusive warmth between Noriko and the couple greatly speaks of emotional value.
No other story could be as resolute as this masterful re-telling of centuries-old truths; family is family and yet, it does not always concern blood.
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) by Agnes Varda
Women are always (disparagingly) misunderstood in all aspects of life; either though our choices, our actions, the word we speak, even the food we eat and don’t eat.
In Varda’s first entry come the French New Wave, we see a woman in her ripening years as a pop star in France but there’s a caveat to it: she is burdened by a Tarot reading that says she is about to fall sick from a terminal illness she could not help. We instantly learn that she had been to the hospital days before to get tested for any presence of cancer in her body.
The movie runs on her fear: Of death, of people misunderstanding her, of dying before not doing enough so much as living as a (lonely) singer. Tailed by the many people in her life that see her as a caged, sheltered child, Cléo vexes at the idea that all of these are meaningless and is worried that this could all be there is for her, empty, routinely, and parasitic connections.
Her fear burns like a wildfire within her, but is only regarded as a niche, womanly weakness by the many, even treated as a portentous attempt of hers for more people to pay attention. But she does not need attention, for she only wants some peace from the things she saw in a span of two hours: Seemingly dreadful masks on display in stores that speak of death, street performers doing feats that verge on the weird and desperate, and the unbelievable people who seem to only know her as the French pop star with a great figure.
In France, the fifth hour of the afternoon is the hour for meeting lovers, rendezvousing at random alleyways. It is the time for coffee, wine and strolling. But for Cléo, it is the hour she dies slowly. And yet she is disregarded. She becomes hyperaware of her surroundings as the hours go by, and she never seems to shrug off the details—a couple breaking up in a café, the expectant looks of fans eyeing her from head to toe, another couple complaining of the “noise” in the jukebox, which happens to be her song.
All these disheartening scenes add up to the rising and fattening anxieties she acquired from 5 p.m. going to 7 p.m. But we never see the grand explosion in the end, the conclusive tantrum to a growing frustration. Instead, we see it right before 6 p.m. mark, as she snaps at the two musicians who visit her home and force her to be a lively figure through her music. After all, she’s just a pop star, her beauty is enough.
“Your beauty is your health,” seems to the case in point of the superficiality of the people who surround her career, including a lover. She finds herself disgusted by this, correctly so. Varda masterfully sewed the moment in the middle to let the audience in on a secret: Cléo is not just another pop star. As with any female singer, being a woman in the entertainment industry is hard enough, so much so as a budding one, unwillingly groomed to impress.
The grand ending would happen some 20 minutes before the feature ends, as she meets a soldier in a garden hidden from the eyes of Paris. Sharing the same sentiments of life over a walk out to the city, a tram ride and long stares, we realize that a doomed connection is building up: Doomed because a soldier is paid to give his life, and therefore sign himself up foe death. They are walking the same gang plank. With this their eyes tell one thing, and love ensues. But the scene ends there, and we are left with the cruel conclusion.
Ever so slightly told, Varda tells us that women are and always will be at the sharp edge of the sword for all the things they are going through. Though regarded as one of the French New Wave’s pillars, it escapes me why she’s not regarded alongside the ranks of Godard, Truffaut, Resnais or Rohmer. It’s always these men’s name. Perhaps the film industry was never ready for the influence of a woman. Because Cléo is the turning point of that ticking emotion for women, and no one can come close to how Varda told her story.
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