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Floating Weeds Blu-Ray Review (Masters Of Cinema)

Floating Weeds was one of the now legendary Japanese director Yasujitõ Ozu’s last films and one of his only handful of colours films. It is also a remake of an earlier silent film he made called A Story of Floating Weeds.

The film is set during a very hot summer in the coastal town the Inland Sea. A travelling theatre group visits the town for a series of performances. Komajuro (Ganjirō Nakamura) the theatre leader visits an old mistress Oyoshi who he had a son Kiyoshi with but his son doesn’t know who his father is. Sumiko who is Komajuro’s current mistress learns of his and becomes jealous. Sumiko plays a visit to Oyoshi’s eatery but Komajuro chases her away before she can reveal anything and breaks up with her in the rain. Sumiko to get back at Komajuro decides to have a young actress Kayo to seduce Komajuro’s son and more drama happens.

Ozu’s films in the last few decades has been reissued and reevaluated a lot and cited by many directors such as Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch as influence. In the latest Sight & Sound poll his earlier film Tokyo Story was voted the 3rd greatest film made after the standard classics Citizen Kane and Vertigo and it topped the director’s poll. Ozu will be very hard going for a lot of people, the films are very slow paced and his camera literally never moves, the stories are very simple domestic tales of then contemporary Japan.

However his films always very human and always powerful and beautiful in its simplicity and Floating Weeds is no exception. Floating Weeds is probably as “flashy” as Ozu ever got, the use of colour really adds a nice layer to his films with its beautiful composition and his choice of colours. The acting is always impeccably naturalistic at it’s best. Ozu should be studied by anyone interested in film and how great minimalist cinema can be, file next to Robert Bresson.

Floating Weeds has been restored by the always wonderful Masters of Cinema imprint of Eureka Entertainment, like the other recent entry Gate of Hell, it doesn’t feature any bonus features bar a trailer but includes 36 page booklet with a essay, rare photos and entries from Ozu’s personal diary.

Ian Schultz

★★★★1/2

Rating: PG
Release Date: 3rd December  2012 (UK)
Directed By: Yasujirô Ozu
Cast:  Ganjirô Nakamura, Machiko Kyô , Haruko Sugimura
Buy :FLOATING WEEDS [UKIGUSA](Masters of Cinema) (DVD & BLU-RAY DUAL FORMAT) [1959]