Two Films, Two Filmmakers

February 5, 2007

I have a feeling that many filmgoers would lodge a similar sounding complaint after viewing these two films: nothing really happens. That happens to be a wrong assessment.. both contain plenty of interpersonal drama and character development. But when seen from the perspective of a big American drama, both films are curiously free of large events. Comparatively these films are hardly dramas.. they are more like life studies. Both directors—the English Mike Leigh and the Japanese Yasujiro Ozu—have trained their cameras on everyday life.

The plots for both films are subtle.. not the kind of stories that I imagine would make a Hollywood mogul leap from his chair with visionary excitement. Four Days in July (1984) examines two couples in Northern Ireland over the course of four days in July. One couple is Protestant and the other is Catholic.. in both the woman is about to give birth. The film examines the daily details of these two parallel couples.. which are marked by numerous class differences. At the conclusion the Protestant and Catholic woman deliver their babies at about the same time.. and both share the same hospital room. A scene with two newborn infants is bound to be filled with some degree of hope.. but the halting conversation between the two mothers gives us a glimpse into the cultural divide about to be passed on to the next generation.

Floating Weeds (1959) is the story of a drama troop that visits a small Japanese town for what they hope will be an extended stay. It turns out that the head of the troop has a former lover in this town, and the son he had with her has now grown up into a young man. As the story progresses it becomes clear that the troop is on its last legs financially and artistically.. and will have to dissolve. The head of the troop considers settling down with his former lover and son.. but his son's relationship with a young female member of the troop complicates this plan.. and in the end he must be off again to follow up a lead for another chance acting career. "Floating Weeds" conjures up the right image: useless and unremarkable people being pushed down the river of time.

It is easy at first to think of all the ways that these two films are similar. Both relentlessly focus on everyday relationships, watching with fascination as people go about their business and interact with one another. Both films could be mistaken for documentaries.. since they labor more at re-creating a particular social world than at manipulating a social world for dramatic ends. Both filmmakers eschew fancy camera work in the telling of their stories. For Ozu that means employing his unmoving-camera.. for Leigh the use of a rather plain visual style. Nothing in their film style reaches out and grabs the viewer..

Both directors would recognize something of themselves in the films of the other.. but in other areas they would not quite be sure what to make of the other. Mike Leigh's plain style comes out of a commitment to portray class differences.. a commitment that also gives his films a political edge. Yasujiro Ozu is more firmly committed to aesthetic ideals.. and his films proceed like a series of still lifes.. each scene carefully composed. Ozu fills the breaks between major scenes with literal still lifes.. and opens the film with the following composition:

It is hard to imagine Leigh employing that kind of purposeful visual humor.. just as it is hard to imagine Ozu infusing his character interactions with the humorous eccentricity of the dialogue in a film by Leigh.

Both directors have made better films, but these efforts are enough to provide relief from bloated Hollywood product-films. There can be nothing more peace-giving after watching a big Hollywood "quality" film like The Departed than to sit back with two films such as these and feel real documented life washing over one.