Floating Weeds
My only exposure to Ozu has been through The Criterion Collection. I first started with Good Morning last year. I looked forward with anticipation to Floating Weeds. I enjoyed Roger Ebert's commentary on Citizen Kane and was please to see that he had done a commentary here as well. I've always enjoyed slow-moving family dramas and directors that use the frame. With so much harping on DVD boards about widescreen, "the director's intentions," the framing, etc, I'm surprised that Ozu isn't more sought out. I guess it's the subject matter. Regardless, his films are beautiful to watch. As Ebert points out, you could take stills from his movies to frame and hang on your wall as art. They're beautifully composed. It's a valuable lesson to watch a film like this to see form rule over plot. The form is attuned to the needs of the characters and the story; however, it rejects the current trend in filmmaking to excise all that does not move the story forward. For Ozu, showing an action in its entirety is part of the story.
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