“We have to help one another” a sympathetic soul insists towards the conclusion of Yasujiro Ozu’s Passing Fancy (出来ごころ, Dekigoroko). Ozu’s depression-era silents are not as devoid of hope as it might at first seem, but it is a much more positive statement and perhaps surprisingly the central messages lie more in the necessity or otherwise of repaying kindness and the kinds of forms that action may finally take. It is also, however, the first in a loose trilogy of films revolving around a single father named “Kihachi” and the only one in which he is not (at least potentially) exiled from the family he has been trying to protect.
This Kihachi (Takeshi Sakamoto) has one young son, Tomio (Tokkan Kozo, AKA Tomio Aoki), and casual job working in a brewery though he is hardly a model employee and is often late due to oversleeping after a night of heavy drinking. A roguish womaniser, he is also a kinder soul than he seems which is why he stops to talk to a pretty young woman, Harue (Nobuko Fushimi), wandering around in distress late in the evening. His first approach is slightly crass, responding to her question about lodging for the night by explaining that he has a kid and no wife but then he takes her to a local cafe he frequents and persuades the owner, Otome (Choko Iida), to take her in. Otome takes a liking to her, and decides to offer her a job as a waitress.
Kihachi develops a hopeless crush, comically dolling himself up in his fanciest kimono and getting an advance from work to buy a pretty comb, an unmistakably romantic gift, to present himself to Harue. Of course, she’s grateful but sees him as a nice older gentleman rather than a potential husband. In fact and somewhat surprisingly she develops a crush of her own on the brooding Jiro (Den Obinata) despite the fact he is constantly rude to her and more or less implies she’s an untrustworthy woman out to take advantage of “vulnerable” men like himself. There is something quite touching and unusual in the brotherly friendship between the two men that occasionally comes off as something more in Jiro’s deep antipathy to Harue, which is to say she isn’t going to come between them but the situation is indeed complicated.
Harue is, in that sense, a distraction that takes Kihachi’s eyes off his proper role as responsible father. He and Tomio have a close, interdependent relationship and it’s clear that it’s often little Tomio, older than his years, who finds himself managing Dad. Kihachi is immensely proud of his son, fond of saying he’d be top of his class if only he had better manners. Like any father what he most wants for him is that he escape their life of poverty which is why he’s so glad that the boy does well at school. But little Tomio finds himself bullied precisely because of Kihachi’s lack of standing. The other boys mock his illiteracy, unable to believe a man could reach adulthood without being able to read. When his son is taken ill, Kihachi laments circumstances even more. “It’s horrible not having an education”, he tells Jiro, “I got my son sick and I can’t even pay the doctor’s bill”.
The depression may be less visible than in Ozu’s other ‘30s films, but its evidence is everywhere. Harue ends up on the streets after losing her job at a silk mill and having no family to fall back on. At the naniwabushi performance which opens the show, a series of spectators hopefully open a lost wallet but find it empty. Kihachi notices the discarded purse is slightly bigger than his own and makes a swap as a hopeful investment for the future. Just before the performance ends, several of the guests seem to be plagued by fleas. Kihachi is forever asking for advances for frivolous reasons but assumes he’ll be able to manage hand to mouth only to enter a moment of crisis when hit by the unexpected expenses of his son’s illness for which he feels responsible in attributing it to an excess of luxury after giving a him a pocket money bonus which he unwisely blew in one go on sweets (like father, like son after all).
Yet what shines through is compassion and camaraderie. A friendly barber loans Jiro the money for a doctor, which is one reason he intends to leave for Hokkaido even after realising his feelings for Harue. As with the other Kihachis, this Kihachi rediscovers a sense of fatherly duty in feeling as if this debt must be his, that he should be the one to go to Hokkaido to repay it even if that means leaving his son behind. The barber tells him not to bother, the sentiment is enough for him and he doesn’t mind missing the money knowing it saved a boy’s life. “We have to help one another”, kindness doesn’t necessarily have to be repaid directly but can be paid forward in becoming a way of life. The Kihachis of A Story of Floating Weeds and An Inn in Tokyo are exiled from their families and serve their sons only by abandoning them, but this Kihachi turns back, his sense of “responsibility” perhaps a “passing fancy” but one that’s taught him the true meaning of fatherhood and what it is to live in a society.
When one thinks of the classic examples of children in Japanese cinema, Hiroshi Shimizu is the name which comes to mind but family chronicler Yasujiro Ozu also made a few notable forays into the genre. I Was Born, But… (大人の見る絵本 生れてはみたけれど, Otona no miru ehon – Umarete wa mita keredo) stars one of the premier child actors of the silent era in Tokkan Kozo (later known as Tomio Aoki) who also worked repeatedly with Shimizu (
Windows on Worlds 