Good Morning (1959 film)

Good Morning
File:Good morning dvd.jpg
Directed by	Yasujiro Ozu
Written by	Kôgo Noda Yasujiro Ozu
Starring	Keiji Sada Yoshiko Kuga Chishu Ryu Kuniko Miyake
Cinematography	Yûharu Atsuta
Music by	Toshirô Mayuzumi
Distributed by	Shochiku Films Ltd.
Release date	May 12, 1959 (Japan)
Running time	94 min.
Language	Japanese

Good Morning (お早よう, Ohayō) is a 1959 comedy film by Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. It is a loose remake of his own 1932 silent film I Was Born, But..., and one of only six films that Ozu made in color.

Plot

The film takes place in suburban Tokyo, and begins with a group of boy students going home. The film steers into a subplot concerning the local women's club monthly dues. Everyone believes that Mrs Hayashi, the treasurer, has given the dues to the chairwoman, Mrs Haraguchi (Haruko Sugimura), but Mrs Haraguchi denies it. They gossip amongst themselves who could have taken the money, and speculate that Mrs Haraguchi could have used the money to buy for herself a new washing machine. Later Mrs Haraguchi confronts Mrs Hayashi for starting the rumor, but Mrs Hayashi states that she has indeed handed the dues money to Haraguchi's mother. Only later does Mrs Haraguchi realize it was her mistake, and she goes to apologize.

The boys are all attracted to a neighbour's house because they have a television set, where they can watch their favorite sumo wrestling matches. (At the time of the film's release in Japan, the medium was rapidly gaining popularity.) However, their parents forbid them to visit their bohemian neighbours because the lady neighbour is thought to be a cabaret singer. The boys of the Hayashi family, Minoru and Isamu, pressure their mother into buying a television set, but their mother refuses. When their father (Chishu Ryu) comes to know about it, he asks the boys to keep quiet. Minoru throws an anger fit, and states that adults always engage in pointless niceties and refuse to say exactly what they mean. Back in their room, Minoru and Isamu decide on a silence strike against all adults. The first neighbor to bear the brunt of their snub is Mrs Haraguchi.

Mrs Haraguchi, angered by this snub, speculates it is Mrs Hayashi who instigates this in revenge, and tells this to busybody Mrs. Tomizawa (Teruko Nagaoka). Soon, everybody thinks Mrs Hayashi is a petty, vengeful person, and is all queueing up to return their loaned items to her.

Minoru and Isamu continue their strike in school, and even against their English tutor. Finally, their schoolteacher visits to find the root of their silence. The two boys run off from home with a pot of rice due to hunger, but are caught by a passing policeman. They disappear for hours into the evening, until their English tutor finds them outside a station watching television. At the end of the film, the boys find out their parents have indeed purchased a television set to support a neighbour in his new job as a salesman. Jubilant, they stop their strike at once. Their English tutor and their aunt appear to be starting a fresh romance.

Style

Despite Ozu's reputation in the West as an austere and refined director, Good Morning is unusual in depicting many of the neighborhood boys' flatulence jokes.

Good Morning satirises television ownership, but ironically it was released in the year that attendance at Japanese cinemas began to decline, primarily as a result of rising numbers of TV sets.

External links

• Good Morning at IMDb
• Good Morning at AllMovie
• Criterion Collection essay by Rick Prelinger
• DVD review of Good Morning
• "お早よう (Ohayō)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
• Review at The Factual Opinion