Kihachi is a father of two boys with neither a job nor a place to live. While wandering around Tokyo during recession, Kihachi and his sons encounter a woman named Otaka and her daughter. The kids are quick to make friendly acquaintances. Watching them play together, Kihachi and Otaka feel happy, as though they’d returned to their childhood days. The script is credited to “Uinzato Mone,” the Japanese pronunciation of “Without Money”; in fact, it was written by Ozu and two friends during a period when the director was short on cash. This was Ozu’s last silent masterpiece, but it shows the influence of the sound cinema. Ozu writes, “Around that time…there was no place for silents anymore. Although An Inn in Tokyo was a silent film, I had no choice but to adopt the method of sound films. For example, in a conversation scene between two persons, I ventured to superimpose character A’s lines on a close-up of character B.”
LIVE music performance by Little Bang Theory.
