Tokkan Kozo (1929)
Tokkan Kozo
(Yasujirô Ozu, Japan 1929, 23 min., DCP, Japanese intertitles w/English subtitles)
Passing Fancy
(Dekigokoro, Yasujirô Ozu, Japan 1933, 100 min., 35mm, Japanese intertitles w/English subtitles)
Silent Tuesdays. Ozu, like many in the Japanese film industry, was slow to move to sound films and continued to make silent films into 1936. This bittersweet melodrama follows Kihachi, a brewery worker who happens upon a destitute young woman one night and gives her a place to sleep. He finds her a job and starts to take better care of himself, hoping she will notice, but she thinks of him as little more than a kind uncle. As Kihachi’s son becomes jealous, a situation arises that will put this precarious situation in jeopardy. This film will be preceded by an Ozu short that has just been rediscovered and made its world premiere at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy. Live piano by Philip C. Carli.