Color . 119 minutes

Deiei Tokyo Studio

Written By
Ozu Yasujiro
Noda Kogo

Cinematography
Miyagawa Kazuo

Music By
Satio Kojun



Cast
Nakamura Ganjiro (Arashi Komajuro)
Kyo Machiko (Sumiko)
Wakao Ayako (Kayo)
Kawaguchi Hiroshi (Homma Kiyoshi)
Sugimura Haruko (Oyoshi)
Nozoe Hitomi (Aiko)
Ryu Chishu (Theater Owner)
Koji (Hideo)
Mitsui (Kichinosuke)
Tanaka Haruo (Yatazo)
Irie Yosuke (Sugiyama)
Hoshi Hikaru (Kimura)
Ushio Mantaro (Sentaro)
Urabe Kumeko (Shige)

Synopsis
A kabuki troupe led by Komajuro Arashi comes to a seaside town. He goes to see Oyoshi, a former lover with whom he fathered a son, Kiyoshi, Komajuro pretends to be Kiyoshi's uncle and strikes up a friendship with him. Due to bad weather, few come to see the kabuki and the troupe is faced with disbanding. Oyoshi tentatively asks Komajuro to stay, but his current mistress Sumiko finds out and to get back at him, she pays a young performer, Kayo, to seduce Kiyoshi. However the couple falls in love and decides to get married. Komajuro tries to intervene but when Kiyoshi finds out who he really is, he spurns him. Dejected, Komajuro leaves with Sumiko.

Thoughts from Ozu
The theme is a melancholy one, with the sensibility of a bygone era. Although the setting is in the present, it evokes the purity and spirit of antiquity of the Meiji era. Some might propose that the stage be bet simply in the Meiji era, but I didn't think it was necessary. Turning this into a period piece required an exhaustive amount of historical research. Instead, this film became an experiment in how to give life an old fashioned story in a modern setting. The cinematographer Miyagawa Kazuo went to great pains to achieve this. I finally got the hang of filming in color. Different colors require varying degrees of lighting: colors not visible to the eye appear different after the film is projected on film... it was only then that I got to grips with these.

Personal Thoughts and Comments
By 1959 Ozu had converted to making color films, but he refused to fall into the conventions of CinemaScope. Ozu preferred his rare and simplistic filmmaking style. However, with Floating Weeds he did get the legendary Japanese cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (most known for his work with the great Kenji Mizoguchi) to photograph the film. It remains one of the only post-war films not be shot by Yuuharu Atsuta and also one of the few color films in which the camera moves. Visually the film is stunning and breathtakingly rich and detailed. Floating Weeds is a remake of Ozu's 1934 silent film A Story of Floating Weeds. While the storyline is alike, the biggest difference between the film lies in the tone. Both films handle the melodrama in different ways. Floating Weeds is a compassionate at times visually masterful film. Not everything works here but there are some moments of humor and subtle poetry.