Movies, great and small.

Lately, I’ve been rewatching some great movies (Dog Day Afternoon, Three Days of the Condor, Hannah and Her Sisters, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Brief Encounter). And, incidentally, the occasional not-so-great ones (Serpico). Below is a screen-grab of the title card from Yasujiro Ozu’s marvelous and under-praised Munekata Sisters (宗方姉妹, 1950), the latest movie I rewatched.

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The story follows two sisters not connected to each other so much as orbiting a common center of gravity - a man named Hiroshi. Setsuko, the elder sister, and Hiroshi were once in love, but never married. Today, Mariko loves him - but she denies her own love attempting to reunite him with Setsuko. (In this way, the sisters’ situations mirror each other, but only vaguely.)

The movie plays as a comedy interwoven with deep sadness (this is an Ozu picture, after all). (Or maybe it’s the other way around: the first time I watched it, I found the movie much funnier than I did this time.) Mariko, Hideko Takamine, brings lightness and humor to the film, offsetting her older sister’s destruction. She’s lively and young, sticking her tongue out, frog-like, whenever she’s uncomfortable, yelling and running off when offended or embarrassed. She’s cute and fun, charming and youthful.

Setsuko, who owns a failing bar and supports a failing husband, long ago lost whatever she had that resembled Mariko’s zest. Life and its responsibilities (or the consequences of her decisions), have left her stoic and struggling, unhappy and adrift. When she and her husband have a fight, late in the movie, she barely breaks on the outside, but is crushed. It’s a subtle performance by Kinuyo Tanaka, counterbalanced by Hideko’s comedic skills.

While this isn’t Ozu’s masterpiece (or, considering the artist, one of his masterpieces), it is exquisite - and recommended.

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