Tokyo boshoku

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The museum for film and the art of the moving image in the Netherlands. Visit the exhibition or cinema and discover our collection with more than 50.000 films.

Eye Filmmuseum

7 February Eye is closed

Eye Filmmuseum seen across the river IJ © Marcus Koppen

Eye Filmmuseum, © Marcus Koppen

still from Tokyo Twilight (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1957)

still Tokyo Twilight (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1957)

still from Early Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1956)

still Early Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1956)

still from The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1952)

still The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1952)

still from Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1953)

still Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1953)

poster Tokyo Twilight (Yasujiro Ozu, JP 1957)

campaign image Shochiku 100 (still from Carmen Comes Home (Keisuke Kinoshita, JP 1951))

campaign image Shochiku 100

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About Eye

The life of an underpaid office clerk is filled with pitfalls, especially when he gets entangled in an affair. Ozu provided a portrait of the family life of an average Japanese ‘salary man’. He did so with warmth, humour and compassion for the hard workers at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy. 

Sugiyama, a poorly paid office clerk accepts the advances of the department’s flirt, in part to alleviate the boredom of his passionless marriage. His wife finds out and tries to start over with Sugiyama.
Unlike most of Ozu’s post-war films, Early Spring is set in the lower middle classes, in a white-collar environment. The film focuses on a unique period in modern Japanese history, the 1950s during which the former empire reassembled itself after the war. There was little hope for the future; even those in work were usually poor.
Ozu inimitably manages to capture the joy and sadness of everyday life in a human, sometimes humorous tale.
The 4K restoration was taken care of by the Shochiku production company. In Eye and <a href="https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/collection/services/distribution" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">national cinemas</a>.

Early Spring

Affecting observation of the alienation between rural grandparents and their urban children and grandchildren in Tokyo. When the elderly couple travel to the city, their children prove so busy with themselves and their lives that they have no time for them. New 4K restoration of Ozu’s most renowned film; selected as the best film of all time by over 350 film directors in 2014.

The deeply affecting Tokyo Story takes an intimate look at the social mores of post-war Tokyo and is without doubt one of the greatest masterpieces in cinema history. The elderly, rural Hirayamas travel to Tokyo where their children live. The latter prove to have almost no time for their parents as the hectic city life consumes them entirely. The tour of their children reveals the painful truth: the family is completely dysfunctional. The couple are to their silent dismay confronted with inter-generational conflict. In Eye and <a href="https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/collection/services/distribution">national cinemas</a>.

Tokyo Story

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Ozu’s final black and white film – with its deep psychological layers – may well be the darkest of his masterful family portraits. It follows the parallel courses of two sisters struggling with the absence of their mother, unwanted pregnancy and marriage trouble. New 4K restoration.

Tokyo Twilight, subsumed with wintry melancholy, reveals the destructive effect of marital secrets on the lives of two sisters: the unhappily married Takako (Setsuko Hara) and the rebellious Akiko (Ineko Arima), a lost soul in the world of late-night bars and mahjong parlour backrooms. In Eye and <a href="https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/collection/services/distribution" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">national cinemas</a>.

This centenary programme brings you (rare) screenings on 35mm, live musical accompaniment, stunning digital restorations and introductions by Japan experts.

Shochiku 100

Tokyo Twilight

Of the over 50 films in his oeuvre, this is Yasujiro Ozu’s personal favourite. The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice subtly exposes class differences and tensions in a lengthy marriage. New 4K restoration.

1950s Tokyo. Taeko and Mokichi’s long marriage is currently in crisis which exposes the major differences between them. Mokichi is a businessman from a working-class, provincial background and has ditto wishes and preferences. He likes smoking cheap cigarettes and his favourite dish is ochazuke (green tea over rice). In Eye and <a href="https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/collection/services/distribution" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">national cinemas</a>.

Tokyo Twilight

Yasujiro Ozu / JP, 1957 / 140 min.

Ozu’s final black and white film – with its deep psychological layers – may well be the darkest of his masterful family portraits. It follows the parallel courses of two sisters struggling with the absence of their mother, unwanted pregnancy and marriage trouble. New 4K restoration.

This is part of

Regular screenings

Early Spring

The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice

Tokyo Story

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Shochiku 100