With someone like Ozu who exhibits such a thematic consistency throughout his body of work, it is interesting to jump around his filmography and see how certain subjects are molded and remolded and how he approached his theme from different angles. Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?, perhaps my favorite Ozu so far, tackles the theme of modernity again, by way of class and male relations. Watching it immediately after having seen The Only Son, it became apparent pretty quickly that under the surface of slapstick comedy that comprises much of the first half of the movie the film text offers a lot about how youths defy tradition but still operate within its boundaries. The question of "modernity" is not so much one of living conditions and societal transformation like in The Only Son, but rather one of individual behavior.
Tetsuo is a rich student, enjoying life with his college pals. He has an eye on the soda-fountain girl Oshige. When his father dies Tetsuo inherits his firm and serves as the new director. His college pals come to him to ask for work and Tetsuo helps them to cheat on the admissions test. Unaware that Saiki, one of his pals, is now engaged to Oshige, Tetsuo begins courting her. When he finds out about the engagement, he violently beats up Saiki.
A lot can be said about how Tetsuo's old friends become yes men once the class difference between them is apparent and how this can be seen as a metaphor for larger societal issues, but I was more interested, like with The Only Son, in the question of "tradition" versus "modernity". One scene in particular is interesting in that regard. Tetsuo's uncle has chosen a prospective wife for Tetsuo. But he doesn't want to meet her. With the help of his father, he feigns drunkenness and behaves in such a bad manner that it drives her away. Yamamura, the chosen wife, is called "the modern one" and she tells an older woman, "our times are different from yours!" When Tetsuo's father explains that his son is drunk, becomes violent when he drinks, and even steals, "the modern one" sees this more as qualities than anything else. She is attracted by this "bad boy" type, that stands against everything a more conventional (i.e. traditional) husband would need to be. It's a first-hand clash between old values and new ones. But Ozu, not one for easy characterizations, then takes the scene in another direction. Tetsuo finally comes to meet his prospective wife. He taps cigarette ashes into her purse, throws her lighter away and says that her bracelet is a fake. What started as slapstick turns into gratuitous cruelty. Ozu, who always made fun of the upper class, depicts them very harshly as spoiled sadists who mess with other people's lives for fun. The upper-class might be a motor for progress (whatever that means), but they are not better human beings for that.
As I see it, Ozu also makes the point that whatever this progress might be, time always catches up. What once was new becomes the norm, or even the tradition, and this cycle of breaking the mold and defying conventions begins again. When we first see Tetsuo as the new director of the company, the camera, in one of Ozu's early signature moves, tracks over a bunch of employees who all yawn (a scene foreshadowing the similar famous sequence in I Was Born, but…) and stops on Tetsuo who yawns as well. The new director, it seems, is, at this point, not too far removed from his subordinates. Subsequently, there is a lot of back and forth between him and the more conservative co-director about Tetsuo's unburdened and easy-minded management style (again a clash between old and new values). Later, Tetsuo's mother tells him, "you look more and more like the director". At work, it also seems like he is more competent and respected. It is at this point, that the divide between him and his pals becomes evident. Society, through various norms and codes of conduct, gulped Tetsuo's new dynamism and spat out an adjusted elitist. It is not that he adhered to the old ways, it is that he becomes the old way. And so, still nothing has changed.
A great film that gives us a lot to think about.
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