Love Old and New (Shamisen to ootobai)
Directed by Masahiro Shinoda
Written by Takao Yanai; story by Matsutaro Kawaguchi
1961/Japan
Shochiku Eiga
First viewing/FilmStruck
[box] “We have been cut off, the past has been ended and the family has broken up and the present is adrift in its wheelchair. … That is no gap between the generations, that is a gulf. The elements have changed, there are whole new orders of magnitude and kind….
My grandparents had to live their way out of one world and into another, or into several others, making new out of old the way corals live their reef upward. I am on my grandparents’ side. I believe in Time, as they did, and in the life chronological rather than in the life existential. We live in time and through it, we build our huts in its ruins, or used to, and we cannot afford all these abandonings.” ― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose[/box]
Shinoda does a good job with an Ozu-light sort of domestic drama.
The story concerns a widowed mother who plays the samisen and instructs men in the traditional art of kouta singing and her 20-year-old daughter who favors reckless motorcycle riding with her boyfriend. The younger couple crash their bike and the daughter is badly injured. The doctor who cares for her turns out to be the mother’s old flame. The older couple rekindle a relationship and the daughter is shocked and appalled at her mother’s conduct. But the generations are really not so different after all …
This reminded me of a story Ozu would make. It really highlights the way the Master would strip the theme down to the essentials. This was a bit more melodramatic and it is a tribute to Shinoda that he handled the script so well. Worth seeing.
