In 1909, Sigmund Freud wrote in a short article titled Family Romances that every child, as he grows up, must deal with the sudden dissatisfaction in his parental figures. He relies on the belief that other parents are in some respects preferable to harshly criticise them.

Yasujiro Ozu’s silent shoshimin geki (lower-middle-class salarymen film) explores this phase of childhood within the context of a changing societal field – the ongoing suburbanization of Tokyo and the rapid economic transformations in the 1920s and 1930s. With his film, Ozu does not only prove the reality of this disenchantment for the Japanese child, but also offers the spectator a glance at the way traditional ideals kept determining familial dynamics in a radically changing societal field.

The depiction of the friction between Yoshii (Tatsuo Saito) and his sons Ryoichi (Hideo Sugawara) and Keiji (Kozo Tokkan) has, of course, been utilized by critics to explore the societal critical dimension of Ozu’s silent narrative, but, as a result, the psychological dimension has been largely overlooked. What instigates the shift in Ryoichi and Keiji’s perception of the father is not so much the glance at the truth of Japan’s social stratification, but the crude confrontation with the real subject behind the idealized fatherly facade.

To be able to understand how the father falters for his children, it is important to delineate what kind of fatherly facade he presents to them. Yoshii grounds his fatherly position by relying on the traditional ideals and expectations that linger within the Japanese societal field. Or, to put it differently, he merely assumes the place of fatherly authority that the traditional societal field has arranged for him. The assumption of this fatherly construction explains, at least partially, why he speaks so little to his children and why his speech is limited to what the societal Other’s prescribes – e.g. give orders and remind them of his expectations to become a great man.

In the beginning of I Was Born, but …, Ryoichi and Keiji believe in the socially determined fatherly shape and the place of fatherly authority given to Yoshii by his inscription in the traditional Other. In fact, they cannot but accept this fatherly facade because they have been subjected to this family structure from birth – father as breadwinner, mother as housewife. Their acceptance is, as strange as it be, evident in their refusal to address him and safeguard the relational distance that exists between them. Neither Keiji nor Ryoichi undertakes an attempt to tell him about the act of bullying and their fear of being beaten up. Within this specific traditional familial structure, the father is someone who speaks, not someone who is spoken to.

The elucidation of the father’s position allows us to grasp the reason why Ryoichi and Kejii skip school at the sight of one of the bullies better. While the fear of being beaten up by the bullies is, of course, the main motor behind their escape, a wish not to disappoint their father and evoke his anger is also in play. Ryoichi and Keiji, who are subject of the fatherly ideal, avoid trouble at school because, at a certain level, they do not want to endanger how their father perceives them and smudge the image of the desired child that reflects in his eye. Yet, by doing so, Ryoichi radically short-circuits his attempt to impress his father with his scholastic accomplishments.

Yet, neither their fear nor their wish truly elucidates their contradictory choice. What pushes them to choose the path of escape is the fact that they cannot address the father. They do not simple lack an address to share their suffering with, but are robbed of it because they are expected to fulfill their father’s expectations – you need to get straight A’s at this school. They are, in a certain way, tasked with the demand to safeguard the father’s hierarchal position, as ordained by the Other, by abiding by his signifiers. Ryoichi is only forced to reveal the truth to his father when he demands them to confess it.

Like stated above, Yoshii’s fatherhood concentrates around enacting his authority. After hearing about his children’s absence at school, he reprimands them, offers them the solution to their problems – ignore them, and makes sure that they, in accordance to his expectations, enter the school’s gate. Yet, his response, given from a position of parental authority, is pregnant of his own fatherly failure. His hastily given solution does not only minimize the conundrum of his children – he does not take their fear that seriously, but fails to ease their fear of being beaten up. Ryoichi and Eiji, confronted with a father that merely demands, must find a way to solve the problem on their own.

The unintended failure of Yoshii introduces the two main questions that structure the further unfolding of the narrative. The spectator is not only led to ask whether the brothers will find a way to deal with the bully, but how their interactions with their classmates will affect their perception of their father. To put it somewhat more theoretically, what real of Yoshii will Ryoichi and Eiji perceive that complicates their idealized image of the father, which arose from the fatherly cloth he crafted from the signifiers (e.g. ideals, desires, …etc.) within the Other (Narra-note 1, Narra-note 2)? Without giving too much away, we can reveal that Yoshii’s real comes to light by Ryoichi’s perception of the friction between the social stratification in a modernized society, the uneven distribution of wealth, and the differences in innate ability between subjects or, to put it more concise, of the inequality that structures the societal field (Narra-note 3).

For the contemporary spectator, I Was Born, But … is a filmic experience that needs to get used to. Not only are there intertitles to read – to uncover the main direction of the narrative’s unfolding, but the lack of speech also invites the spectator to interpret what is said and how it is said within a given scene when no intertitles are given. Ozu does not merely deliver a more active cinematic experience, but one where the spectator must infuse his own subjectivity into – the narrative comes, primarily, alive through the spectator’s interpretative intervention.   

Yet, such demand, of course, means that it can take a while for the spectator to find his bearings in the narrative, a difficulty exacerbated by Ozu’s often quite fast-paced cutting and his use of often disorienting changes of camera perspective (Cine-note 1). It is only by letting the first scenes wash over him that the spectator becomes able to discern the different relational structures and uncover the thematical direction of the narrative. The changes in pace might cause some confusion in the spectator, but are instrumental in giving Ozu’s visual fabric its evocative power and its impressionistic quality. The fleeting nature of many shots allows the poetic dimension of the mundane acts visually stand out – e.g. the father putting a cigarette in his mouth.  

Ozu relies heavily on musical accompaniment to set the mood of his scenes. For the spectator, these musical pieces are important to subtly guide his interpretation of what remains silent and the emotions in play. In the silent era, the continuous presence of music would complicate the functioning of the Benshi, who was expected to fill the gaps for the spectator. It is, in fact, by utilizing music to suppress and quiet the Benshi, by forcing the spectator to read the clash between the visuals and the music with his subject, that Ozu’s patchwork of daily scenes and mundane interactions can keep the contemporary spectator engaged from start to finish.

I Was Born But, …is not only an important cinematic historical document, but an experience that can still be enjoyed by the contemporary spectator. What allows Ozu’s exploration of parental failure to retain its power to charm and engage is the very fact that every child needs to go through such phase, irrespective of culture and language.  

Narra-note 1: That there are different ways to assume the signifier father within a patriarchal societal system is revealed by the father of the bully. Rather than letting his child fend for his own like Yoichi and Keiji’s father, he seeks to confront the subject who made his child.

Narra-note 2: It is important to note that Yoichi, the first-born son, is the one whose image of his father shatters. Keiji, his younger brothers, merely mimics his older brother – he shapes himself in the image of his brother.

Narra-note 3: The interpretation of the finale of the narrative depends on one’s interpretative focus. Commentators who emphasize the dimension of social critique will surely argue that the narrative does not offer a happy conclusion, but, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the narrative ends very positively. What helps the two children to come to terms with the failure of their father while retaining the Other’s desire as their guiding light is the mother’s statement: become greater men than your father.   

Cine-note 1: Ozu does not follow the well-known 180-degree rule when various characters are in focus.