There Was a Father

• Ryu Chishu: Shūhei Horikawa
• Shuji Sano: Ryohei, his son
• Haruhiko Tsuda: Ryohei, as a child
• Shin Saburi: Yasutaro Kurokawa
• Takeshi Sakamoto Makoto Hirata
• Mitsuko Mito: Fumi
• Masayoshi Otsuka: Seichi
• Shinichi Himori: Minoru Uchida

There was once a father (Japanese父 あり きChichi ariki, English:. There Was a Father ) is a Japanese film from 1942 directed by Ozu Yasujirō who is responsible, together with Tadao Ikeda and Takao Yanai also wrote the screenplay. had. The film was very well received by critics and by the Japanese government and was at the box office in Japan a success. He was awarded the second place in the award of the Kinema Jumpo Prize.

Action

Shūhei Horikawa lives after the death of his wife alone with his son Ryohei in a Japanese provincial city. With a certain rigor he pays attention to the education of elementary school student. As a teacher, he taught there geometry. With his class, he embarks on a trip to Tokyo. While he plays there in a rest a Go game, crashed one of his students died in a unauthorized boat trip.

Although his supervisor, Professor Hirata, tried to talk him out, he makes because of this oversight breach such accusations that he immediately gives up his profession. He believes that it is unsuitable as a teacher, precisely because it had not been able to have made before the ban sufficiently intelligible. And he as a father would his child does not want to entrust such a teacher.

By train Shūhei goes with the boy in his hometown Ueda, where he visits one, it still related, clergyman. In common craft activities he finds the Mußezeit for thought. His wife and his father are buried here. The parents had Shūheis father sold to finance the education of his son.

Ryohei can enjoy the time of the joint fishing on the river here. Here he explains the father that he has decided to send him to a boarding school to allow him the subsequent studies, that they are but still look at the weekends. A short time later, the father explains to him but that he will go to Tokyo, as he hopes to find better work there. As always tries Shūhei to convince the son of the decision. However, this is very disappointed that he finally begins to cry. For the first time the father here shows a slight rigor and forbids him to cry. But then he gives him conscientiously pocket money, socks, and all the other things that he will need for the next time.

As Ryohei is 25 years old, he takes after studying at a job as a teacher at a school in Akita, while the father now lives in Tokyo and exercises a supervisory role in a textile factory. In this city he runs into his former supervisor, Professor Hirata. The meeting shows ties and affection between the two men. The two spend time at the game of Go and Hirata, who also lives without a wife, Shūhei invites to himself and his two children a home.

Ryohei missed it, to live with his father. He proposes to abandon his post and move to Tokyo, what Shūhei refuses because he wants his son as a teacher not as failed as he was. It remains in regular visits to the duration of several days. Because of the great love of his father Ryohei regularly accepted the Father's will, if he does not accept his wishes.

After a reunion with one of his former classes, Shūhei beats his son, who was classified as suitable and therefore soon have to perform military service, the right to marry the daughter Hirata. Shortly thereafter Shūhei suffers a heart attack. At the hospital bed sit Ryohei, Hirata and his daughter Fumi. Shūhei directed his last words to Hirata: "I trust you with my son. I'm counting on you ... " You see Ryohei cry.

Ryohei is the wife, Fumi, married to him by the Father has recommended in his lifetime. In the last scene, Ryohei tells Fumi: " Since my childhood I dreamed to live with my father. When I could realize it, he died. I was allowed to live for a week with him. It was the best time of my life. He was a good father. " Fumi begins to weep bitterly.

Background

• In the settings, details of everyday life and working life of Japanese life world are focused again and again: The lessons of the teacher Shūhei, dealing with the sewing and the printing press in the monastery and work in the textile factory.

• The film also shows Japanese manners: sympathy, the expression of affection - entirely without physical proximity. Throughout the film, there are only three scenes in which physical contact can be seen.

• Even before he had gone for some time as a soldier to China, Ozu in 1937 wrote a first draft of this film. When he returned to Japan, he wrote several more drafts.

Criticism

" This [ ... ] film derives its value from [ ... ] not only from its deep history, but above all by his touching images and Ozu's use of stylistic elements and changing narrative tempos. "

" Ozu accompanied his characters over decades and told with great intensity of their born of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty suffering. "