I Graduated, But... (1929)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu

Film Review

With I Graduated, But..., his tenth film, director Yasujirô Ozu was able to move on from the brisk comedies that dominated his early output at Shochiku studio to more serious dramas depicting life in the real world, as experienced by most lower middle-class Japanese people.  Ozu's more senior contemporary at Shochiku, Shimizu Hiroshi, was originally assigned to direct the film, but Ozu took over, determined to demonstrate his versatility.  Today, only fragments of the film (totalling ten minutes of run time) exist, so it is not possible to judge how successfully Ozu was in making the transition to more a serious kind of film, but there is no doubt that I Graduated, But... is much darker in tone and much more restrained than Ozu's previous surviving films, as befits its subject.

At the time the film was made, Japan was already deeply mired in a long depression that was many time worse than the one which was about to strike the western economies.  Unemployment amongst university graduates was particularly high and it was quite common place for highly educated graduates to accept offers of menial work to make ends meet.  What I Graduated, But... shows is a reality that was all too familiar to Japanese graduates in the late 1920s, and Ozu captures, very effectively, and rather poignantly, the soul-destroying despondency of facing a future without work with a degree in your back pocket.  The director would revisit the same theme in his subsequent film, I Flunked, But..., albeit in a somewhat more humorous vein, more in keeping with the tone of his previous student comedies.  It is worth mentioning, en passant, that this was the first occasion Ozu worked with Minoru Takada and Kinuyo Tanaka, who were both fated to become major stars of Japanese cinema, Tanaka being especially famous for her many collaborations with another great cineaste, Kenji Mizoguchi.

Film Synopsis

Having recently graduated, Tetsuo Nomoto thinks he will soon find a well-paid job worthy of his talents.  He goes for a job interview with a large company but all he is offered is the post of a receptionist, which he immediately turns down.  When he returns home, he receives an unexpected visit from his mother and his fiancée Machiko.  Too embarrassed to reveal the truth, Tetsuo tells his mother that he has a good job.  He maintains this fiction by going out each morning to the park, where he spends the day playing with children.  One evening, he discovers that Machiko is working in a bar.  He is naturally outraged but he becomes ashamed when Machiko tells him she took the job because they desperately need the money.  Humbled by his wife's sacrifice, Tetsuo returns to the company that interviewed him earlier, ready to accept the lowly receptionist job...