Days of Youth (1929)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu

Film Review

Days of Youth is the earliest surviving film by the great Japanese filmmaker Yasujirô Ozu, his first feature-length film.  Prior to this, Ozu had made seven short films between 1927 and 1929, but sadly these are all lost forever.  Originally titled Memory (Omoide), Days of Youth was scripted by Ozu in collaboration with Akira Fushimi, one of the best comedy writers at the Shochiku-Kamata studio where Ozu spent his entire career, and is consequently one of Ozu's most light-hearted films. 

Although Ozu never went to college himself (he flunked the entrance exams for Kobe University) his surviving student comedies show that he had a sound grasp of student life and closely identified with students.   At the time, Ozu's life was not too dissimilar to that experienced by most students.  An energetic young man in his mid-twenties, he made a habit of drinking through the night with his friends and would take an annual skiing trip in the popular resort of Akakura, making use of an inn run by the parents of cameraman Mohara Hideo.

Student comedies, often made very cheaply and quickly, were among the most popular films made by the Shochiku-Kamata studio in the late 1920s.  Some, including Ozu's films, were heavily influenced by American cinema, in particular the comedies of Harold Lloyd, such as The Freshman (1925), which were phenomenally successful in Japan at the time.  One of the main protagonists in Days of Youth (Shuichi Yamamoto, affectionately played by Tatsuo Saitô) is a Harold Lloyd look-a-like, complete with round glasses.  The film is replete with the kind of visual gags that were Lloyd's stock-in-trade, the best being a hilarious sequence in which the hopelessly inept Yamamoto frantically chases after a rogue ski that seems to have acquired a mind of its own.  The humour may not be as slick and polished as Lloyd's but it still manages to hit the mark, most of the time.

Whilst Days of Youth shows little of the sophistication and stylistic rigour of Ozu's later films it does contain the seeds of the director's subsequent masterworks.   Ozu's obsession with patterning, internal symmetries within the narrative, can be detected even in this first feature.  The film ends with an exact reversal of the panning shots of various Tokyo locations which opened it, thereby setting the story it tells within an elegant frame whilst also conveying a sense that the story will continue, repeating itself, ad infinitum.  Another of Ozu's trademarks, his use of ellipsis (...), is also noticeable, and is used expertly to comic effect in a few places, as well as helping to tighten the narrative and suggest the passing of time.

It would be many years yet before Ozu would settle on his characteristic (waist-height) camera positioning and preference for static camera set-ups, so Days of Youth would seem to lack his personal signature, unless you look very closely.  Made at a time when Ozu was at his happiest and had the freedom to play around with technique, this film has both a carefree exuberance and a pleasing touch of anarchy about it - qualities that would certainly have endeared it to Japanese audiences at the time.

Film Synopsis

Watanabe is a college student in North-West Tokyo who is more interested in enjoying himself than passing his exams.  To attract a girl, he puts a notice in the window of his living quarters announcing that his room is for rent.  When the girl, Chieko, moves in, he naturally has to move out, but he has a perfect excuse for returning and getting to know her.  The downside is that Watanabe is now homeless, but not for long.  He moves in with another student, the more studious Yamamoto.  It so happens that Yamamoto has been pursuing Chieko for some time, without success. Yamamoto lacks not only Watanabe's good looks, but also his cunning.  Having taken their end of year exams, the two students head off for a skiing resort, but their friendly holiday is derailed when they run into Chieko.  Which of them will get the girl?