Synopsis
Watanabe and Yamamoto are college friends who
both fancy a girl called Chieko. One of them announces
that there is a room for rent in his living quarters
in the hopes of attracting her. The other has
afternoon tea with her, but embarrasses himself
as he tries to hide the wet paint on his hands.
After their year end exam, the boys go to a skiing
resort with other classmates and there they run
into Chieko. However, it turns out that she's
there for a matchmaking meeting with their ski
club leader Hatamoto. On their way back to Tokyo,
they discover they have flunked.
Thoughts from Ozu This work is a student comedy with ski scenes.
The protagonist squats in a lodging by taking
down the "Room to Let" sign. Whenever
a prospective tenant comes along, he will put
him off with nasty words, or lie about having
already rented the place. However, if a pretty
girl knocks on the door, he would "sacrifice
himself" and let her have the room. Of course,
he would leave without his belongings. What better
excuse that to keep calling on the lady to pick
up this or that. In those days, Fushimi Akira
and I were always making up stories like that.
Many of my work of that period were collaborations
with Fushima. When dusk falls, we would walk around
Ginza, drink and have dinner, then talk about
our script as we made our way to my home in Fukagawa.
Then, we would chat, listen to music and brew
some English tea. We'd stay up all night like
this, and by the crack of dawn, we'd have the
outlines of the story. Somehow, we always managed
to come up with a script in one night. Looking
back, it really amazes me.
Background
The 8th film, shot from the end of February to
the beginning of April, 1929. The original title
Memory (Omoide) was changed to
Days of Youth (Wakaki hi) before the
public release. The young director had improved
his skill with several short comedies. This is
not only his first long feature but also Ozu's
earliest surviving film. The film is set in the
northwestern part of Tokyo. The film is a comedy
about two students: the smart guy Watanabe and
the bungling Yamamoto. Fushimi Akira, one of the
most famous comedy writers in the Shochiku-Kamata
studio, put many excellent gags in this comedy.
In those days, Ozu and Fushimi used to prepare
outlines of scenarios when dining out in Ginza
and then chatting at Ozu's house in Fukagawa until
dawn. The most popular parts of this film are
the skiing scenes in the latter half, shot in
Akakura in the province of Shinshu. Ozu had learned
filmmaking under the director Okubo Tadamoto,
who loved skiing and used to take ski vacations
every winter. Moreover, since the parents of the
cameraman Mohara Hideo ran the Hotel Takadaya
in Akakura, Ozu took a ski vacation there every
January. The film seems to be an extension of
the Kamata studio filmmakers usual amusement.
Even Hotel Takadaya appears in the film. In this
sense we also enjoy Ozu';s and his crew's joyful
days of youth (Ozu was 25 years old). Among the
players, Matsui Junko could actually ski. However,
Yuki Ichiro, who skies well in the film, was an
absolute beginner. Needless to say, the best skier
was Mohara. This film shows his skills as a cameraman
and as a skier. Skiing was also very popular at
Shochiku's rival company Nikkatsu. For the Nikkatsu-Uzuma's
studio in Kyoto, Mokudo Shigeru had made the film
Frentic Skiing (Suki moshin) two
moths before. As a gag in this Nikkatsu film,
the names of scenario-writers of Shochiku were
used for the names of the characters. As a countermove,
the names of scenario writers from the Nikkatsu
were quoted in Days of Youth. For instance the
name Hatamoto Shuichi (played by Saito Tatsuo)
is a mix of Hatamoto Shuichi and Yamamoto Kajiro.
There is also a student named Hatamoto in the
film (played by Himoto Shinichi). Watanabe Bin
(played by Yuki Ichiro) was named after Kisaragi
Bin, whose real name was Watanbe Tsuneshige. Koayashi
Masashi often used the pseudonym Donki Hotei,
therefore one character in the film reads the
paperback Don Quixote. And where is the name of
Mizoguchi Kenji, the chief of the Nikkatsu writers
section at the time? Watch the barber's signboard.
Personal
Thoughts and Comments
Days of Youth is the earliest surviving feature
film from Ozu (he made seven prior films that
have since been lost). It's a remarkable film
to watch just to see how Ozu has grown as a filmmaker.
His earliest work shares his love and influence
of Hollywood comedies and perhaps few films express
this more prominently then Days of Youth. Aside
from the direct visual references (poster of Seventh
Heaven and Claire Bow, or even a character that
evokes physical similarities to Harold Lloyd),
Days of Youth also shares the spirit of these
Hollywood influences (most particularly the light-hearted
romantic comedies of Ernst Lubitsch). Of course,
Harold Lloyd's influence is evident and Ozu does
reveal his early gifts as a visual comedian of
sight gags (particularly in the second half of
the film at the ski slopes). One of the joys of
watching this film is just to observe how Ozu's
trademark style and themes had not yet developed
in his earliest features. While underneath the
surface you can discover some of the roots, this
film heavily contrasts his most familiar and memorable
masterworks. The opening shots are something you'd
never see in Ozu's postwar films, as Days of Youth
opens with a circular-motion pan of a series of
shots establishing the exterior environment and
setting. His trademark "pillow shots"
are shown here as point of view shots, and there
are far more close-ups, tracking shots, and fades.
This film lacks the pure mastery of visual space,
composition, and patterns of Ozu's best films,
but you can still find some definitive visual
motifs (notably a brief shot of a train, and repetitive
images of smoke pipes). Above all, Days of Youth
is an enjoyable and charming comedy that blends
itself as a buddy comedy, a slapstick comedy,
and a romantic/love triangle comedy. At the core
is a friendship that is shared during "the
days of youth". This may be a minor film
from Ozu, but it is a wonderful joy to watch both
for the entertaining appeal of the film and the
earliest surviving work from one of the greatest
filmmakers to ever live.
