Japanese filmmakers were slow to switch to sound and Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth is a silent film; Ozu, like the elegant Chaplin, did not make a film with sound until 1936. Where Now ... was Ozu's twenty-sixth film and something of a transition in both style and content: he was still moving the camera fairly frequently but also starting to use the low-angle shots that became standard in his later films. The film started out as a "student comedy," a popular genre in Japan at that time, but also embodied the class-consciousness, melancholy and family drama of later Ozu films.
The story is simple: Tetsuo (Ureo Egawa) has to leave school to take over the family business when his father dies; three of his friends eventually join his firm after he helps them cheat at a company test, just as he had helped them cheat in school. Tetsuo meets his old love Shigeto (Kinuyo Tanaken) when he sees her moving to a cheaper place after the bakery where they met is closed. They rekindle their romance until Tetsuo discovers that Shigeto has promised to marry Tetsuo's friend Saiki (Tatsuo Seito), who had already given his approval to Tetsuo's affair with Shigeto in gratitude to Tetsuo's hiring him and in obeisance to Tetsuo's authority. Tetsuo slaps Saiki around for so easily giving up Shigeto, another Ozu criticism of the Japanese hierarchical system.
The screenplay for Where Are Now Dreams of Youth is by frequent Ozu collaborator Kogo Noda and the cinematography by Hideo Shigehara, who photographed many of Ozu's silent films.
For my previous posts about Ozu films see March 31 2015, Nov. 30 2015, May 15 2019.
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