Floating Weeds


Floating Weeds is a 1959 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu, starring Ganjirō Nakamura and Machiko Kyō. It is a remake of Ozu's own black-and-white silent film A Story of Floating Weeds.

Plot

The film takes place during a hot summer in 1958 at a seaside town on the Inland Sea. A travelling theatre troupe arrives by ship, headed by the troupe's lead actor and owner, Komajuro. The rest of the troupe goes around the town to publicise their appearance.
Komajuro visits his former mistress, Oyoshi, who runs a small eatery in the town. They have a grown-up son, Kiyoshi, who works at the post office as a mail clerk and is saving up to study at the university. However, he does not know who Komajuro is, having been told he is his uncle. Komajuro invites Kiyoshi to go fishing by the sea.
When Sumiko, the lead actress of the troupe and Komajuro's present girlfriend, learns that Komajuro is visiting his former mistress, she becomes jealous and makes a visit to Oyoshi's eatery, where Kiyoshi and Komajuro are playing a game of go. Komajuro brusquely chases her away before she can say anything too calamitous, then confronts her in the pouring rain. He tells her to back off from his son, and decides to break up with her. Sumiko calls Komajuro an ingrate, and reminds him of the times she has helped him out in the past.
Backstage one day, Sumiko offers Kayo, a pretty young actress from the same troupe, some money and asks her to seduce Kiyoshi. Although Kayo is at first reluctant, she gives in after Sumiko's insistence, without being told why. She goes to Kiyoshi's post office to make him fall for her. However, after knowing Kiyoshi for some time, she falls for him and decides to tell Kiyoshi the truth about how their relationship started. Kiyoshi is undaunted and says it does not matter to him, and eventually their relationship is discovered by Komajuro.
Komajuro confronts Kayo, who tells him of Sumiko's setup, but only after asserting she now loves Kiyoshi and is not doing it for money. Komajuro has a violent confrontation with Sumiko and tells her he does not want to see her again. She pleads for reconciliation, but he is indignant.
Amid Komajuro's personal dramas, the troupe's old-fashioned kabuki-style performances fail to attract the town's residents. The other actors pursue their own romantic diversions at local businesses, including a brothel and a barber shop. As audiences decline, problems pile up: the manager of the troupe abandons them, and a principal supporting player absconds with the remaining funds. Komajuro has no choice but to disband the troupe, and they meet for a melancholy last night together. Komajuro then goes to Oyoshi's place and tells her of his troupe's break-up. Oyoshi persuades him to tell Kiyoshi the truth about his parenthood and then stay together with them at her place as a family. After some discussion, Komajuro agrees.
When Kiyoshi later comes back with Kayo, Komajuro becomes so enraged to see them together that he beats both of them repeatedly, leading to a physical tussle between Kiyoshi and him, ending with Kiyoshi pushing him towards a table. To stifle the brawl, Oyoshi reveals to him the truth about Komajuro. Kiyoshi first responds that he had suspected it all along, but then refuses to accept Komajuro as his father, saying he has coped well without one so far, and goes to his room upstairs. Taking in Kiyoshi's reaction, Komajuro decides to leave after all. Kayo wants to join Komajuro to help him achieve success for the family, but a chastened Komajuro asks her to stay to help make Kiyoshi a fine man, as was always Komajuro's hope. Kiyoshi later has a change of heart and goes downstairs to look for Komajuro, but his father has already left, and Oyoshi tells Kiyoshi to let him go.
At the train station in town, Komajuro tries to light a cigarette but has no matches. Sumiko, who is sitting nearby, comes up and offers him a light. Sumiko asks where Komajuro is going, and asks to accompany him, since she now has no place to go. The two reconcile and Sumiko decides to join Komajuro to start anew under another impresario at Kuwana. The last scene of the film shows Komajuro, tended by Sumiko, in a train heading for Kuwana.

Cast

Floating Weeds, Ozu's only film for Daiei, was produced at the studio's urging after he completed Good Morning, which had fulfilled the director's contractual obligation to complete one film per year for Shochiku. Ozu first planned to remake A Story of Floating Weeds for Shochiku, and the title was intended to be A Ham Actor ; the stars were to include Eitarō Shindō and Chikage Awashima as the primary leads, Masami Taura and Ineko Arima as the youth leads, and Isuzu Yamada as the former mistress. Filming had been delayed in 1958 due to an unexpectedly mild winter in the Niigata region, where Ozu had hoped to film a snowy location; when the Daiei opportunity arose, he followed through on his plan to move filming to a summer setting in seaside Wakayama. The actors were replaced mostly with Daiei contract players, and the title was changed in deference to Ganjirō Nakamura, the respected kabuki theater star who played the lead.
In a bit of stunt casting, Ozu did secure Kōji Mitsui from Shochiku for his seventh and final role for the director, as the character who drives the subplot about the amorous escapades of the supporting players; as Hideo Mitsui, the actor had portrayed the protagonist's son in the 1934 version.
The troupe is first observed performing a scene from a play about Chuji Kunisada, a 19th-century historical figure who was romanticised as a forest-dwelling Robin-Hood-like hero in a number of plays, novels, and films. In the scene shown, Kunisada is taking his leave of his faithful companions, Gantetsu and Jōhachi, on Mt. Akagi. Wild geese flying south for the winter and crows returning to their nests are used as images of parting. Ozu includes a small joke in the staging of the scene to confirm that this is not a very polished troupe of actors. When Gantetsu delivers the line, "The wild geese are calling as they fly towards the southern skies," he points off-stage into the auditorium. So when Sumiko, as Chuji, turns stage left to deliver the line "And the moon is descending behind the western mountains," she is actually facing east.
Despite Ganjirō Nakamura's fame as a noted star of kabuki theater, he is shown applying full makeup but not actually filmed onstage, though he is heard off-screen as the audience watches him perform and players backstage lament the show's poor attendance.

DVD release

Floating Weeds was released on Region 1 DVD by The Criterion Collection on April 20, 2004, as a two-disc set with A Story of Floating Weeds. An alternate audio track contains a commentary by Roger Ebert.

Reception

Floating Weeds is widely acclaimed by film critics. Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four, and included it on his "Ten Greatest Films of all Time" in 1991. Alan Bett of The Skinny gave the film a full five stars. Tom Dawson of BBC gave it four stars out of five. Allan Hunter of Daily Express rated it 4/5, while Stuart Henderson of PopMatters gave it a 9/10. The film currently holds a 95% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics consensus stating that: "Floating Weeds boasts the visual beauty and deep tenderness of director Yasujiro Ozu's most memorable films -- and it's one of the few the master shot in color."
In 2002, American film director James Mangold listed Floating Weeds as one of the best films of all time. He said, "Ozu is the world's greatest director film geeks have never heard of. A poet, humanitarian, stylist, innovator - and a brilliant actors' director. I would recommend the film to anyone with a heart who knows direction is about more than camera moves." In 2012, Spanish film director José Luis Guerín, as well as two other directors, listed the film as one of the greatest ever made.