Double Review: "A Story of Floating Weeds" & "Floating Weeds"

I watched Yasujiro Ozu's A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) and Floating Weeds (1959) back-to-back. A Story of Floating Weeds is one of Ozu's final silent films. Basically the film is a family drama involving a lot of characters: the leader of an acting troupe, his lover, one of his actresses, his ex-lover and her son. Floating Weeds is Ozu's own remake of A Story of Floating Weeds in sound and color. The story is the same, but it has been subtly altered and (arguably) it is more complex.

Both of the films offer Ozu's yet another take on family dynamics. His observations are interesting - as always. What is the most interesting thing about these two films is to compare them. A Story of Floating Weeds was made before the World War II and Floating Weeds was made after it. Ozu emphasizes a few (more or less) subtle changes. For example, public behaviour is a lot more open and straightforward in Floating Weeds, which is one of the indirect results of Japan's loss in World War II.

It is also interesting to take a look at the form because Ozu changes his approach to a few scenes drastically in the remake. While Ozu's form is already fine in the silent film, the remake fares even better. Ozu's trademark to revisit same compositions (or at least similar) is visible in both films, but it is executed better and more precisely in Floating Weeds. Also, the film has even a bigger impact with sound because it gives the performances more resonance. In general, acting was a bit more intriguing in the remake although it's possibly only because the characters were not as stiff as in the original.

In overall, both of these films are very good. I prefer the remake, but that might partly be due to the fact that I watched it right after the original - the compositions and the story were more powerful that way.

Scores:

A Story of Floating Weeds (1934): 8 out of 10
Floating Weeds (1959): 9 out of 10